EXL to Acquire AI Training Firm iMerit in $310 Million Deal to Boost Enterprise AI Capabilities

Data and AI company EXL has announced plans to acquire AI training and model evaluation firm iMerit in a deal valued at up to $310 million, as it looks to strengthen its position in the rapidly growing enterprise AI market.

The acquisition, expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, includes an upfront payment of $170 million and up to $140 million in incentives and earnouts tied to performance milestones over the next two years.

The deal will expand EXL’s capabilities in AI model training, evaluation and reinforcement learning, helping enterprises move AI projects from experimentation to large-scale deployment.

iMerit works with leading AI companies to train and improve large language models and multimodal AI systems. Its clients use the company’s expertise to enhance the accuracy and reliability of AI models across text, image, video, voice and LiDAR data.

According to EXL, the acquisition will give it closer access to foundation model developers and provide insights into how advanced AI models are trained, fine-tuned and optimised. The company said this will help its clients build industry-specific AI systems tailored to their business needs.

A key part of the acquisition is iMerit’s proprietary Ango platform, which supports AI model evaluation, chain-of-thought reasoning, red teaming and multimodal testing. EXL also gains access to iMerit’s ‘Scholars’ network, a global pool of experts, including physicians, scientists, engineers and linguists who provide human feedback for AI training and reinforcement learning.

EXL plans to integrate Ango with its existing AI platforms, including EXLerate.ai, EXLdata.ai and EXL.decision.ai, creating an end-to-end enterprise AI ecosystem.

“Success with AI requires industry-specific data, rigorous evaluation and reinforcement learning,” said Rohit Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of EXL. He added that the acquisition would strengthen the company’s ability to deliver trusted and accountable AI solutions for enterprises.

The deal is expected to further expand EXL’s presence in sectors such as healthcare, insurance, banking and capital markets while also opening opportunities in emerging AI fields, including autonomous mobility, robotics and physical AI.