How to Find the AI Companies Big Tech May Buy Next

The article is a promotional commentary on how investors can profit from AI M&A by identifying promising private companies before Big Tech buys them. It uses Apple’s reported acquisitions of PrimeSense and Q.ai as examples of how strategic purchases can create large returns for early backers, with PitchBook estimating Q.ai’s early investors may have seen 30x-plus gains in roughly three years. The piece argues that Apple’s buyouts were driven by three assets: strong founders, valuable technology, and time savings. It highlights the author’s PPT framework—People, Product, Timing—as a way to evaluate early-stage AI startups. The market takeaway is that the biggest AI winners may not be public stocks, but private companies acquired before IPOs, making founder quality, product relevance, and timing critical for spotting outsized opportunities.