A new MSCI survey of the global wealth management industry reveals that global instability, new market opportunities, rapid advances in AI, and rising client expectations are reshaping how financial advisers build portfolios and deliver value to end-investors.
“Wealth Trends 2026 – How Advisers Are Repositioning for a Volatile World” reveals the major forces that wealth management industry professional said will reshape their clients’ investments in 2026:
- Evolving geopolitical risk;
- Global end-investor interest in markets outside of the U.S.;
- Private market expansion;
- Accelerating AI adoption, and;
- New financial and industry dynamics, such as direct indexing innovation, that bolster end-investors’ demand for personalized portfolios.
The findings are based on MSCI’s survey of 250 global wealth industry professionals, including portfolio managers, CIOs, investment strategists, research heads and advisory firms of different sizes. This year’s results show a notable increase in concerns about macroeconomic instability and a deeper emphasis on technology and client-centric investment design.
“Personalization has moved from a differentiator to a baseline expectation in wealth management,” Alex Kokolis, Global Head of Wealth at MSCI, said. “Nearly every new high-net-worth portfolio now reflects some level of customization, as clients seek investments aligned with their goals, values and evolving views on risk. The challenge for advisers is no longer whether to personalize, but how to do so at scale while maintaining efficiency, consistency and transparency.”
Client expectations for personalization have become more universal than ever before, the survey revealed:
- 98% of new high-net-worth (HNW) portfolios now include some degree of customization – a significant jump from 2025’s study, for which with 60% of advisers said they expected clients to demand some form of personalisation.
- 53% of the 2026 survey participants cited end-investor desire for thematic exposures as a top driver of personalization.
The study found that direct indexing continues to expand as a scalable engine for custom portfolio construction:
- 62% of wealth firms survey expect direct indexing usage to increase over the next three years.
- 59% view it as essential for serving HNW clients.
This year’s survey results show a notable increase in wealth managers’ concerns about macroeconomic instability impacting client portfolios, and their stronger emphasis on technology and client-centric investment design. Concerns about geopolitical volatility have intensified year-over-year and are reshaping allocation strategies:
- Roughly 86% of respondents worldwide reported heightened concern about new tariffs issues by nations worldwide and global uncertainty from a year ago – and most of those are significantly more likely to decrease U.S. equity allocations.
- 61% of respondents plan to increase allocations to developed, non-U.S. markets, while only one third expect to increase U.S, equity exposure.
- 48% of respondents expect to increase emerging market exposure as advisers broaden regional diversification beyond the U.S.
“Wealth management is going through a period of transition. While navigating heightened geopolitical concerns and uncertainty, wealth managers must keep pace with increased expectations for portfolio personalisation and technological change driven by AI,” said Hassan Suffyan, Head of Wealth for EMEA and APAC at MSCI. “Outside the US, wealth managers told us that market concentration is pushing their clients to look to a wide range of developed and emerging markets for resilience and new sources of growth. While U.S. advisers remain more anchored to domestic equities, their peers in EMEA and APAC are reallocating more decisively toward non-U.S. markets, reflecting different risk perceptions, client expectations and emerging regional opportunities.”
Private markets are increasingly becoming a core component of end-investor portfolios, as cautious wealth managers reposition their clients’ investments for public market instability:
- Almost three quarters of survey respondents anticipate increasing allocations to private and alternative assets.
- According to MSCI Research, increasing allocations to private assets by 15% allocation may increase expected returns by 40 basis points annually while maintaining similar levels of market risks.
- 83% of the study participants also agreed that offering a robust suite of private market solutions is becoming essential to their work with clients, reflecting a stronger alignment between demand and capability.
As portfolios become more complex, advisers are increasingly pairing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with private assets allocations to maintain liquidity and tactical flexibility. This year, 73% of survey respondents said they believe that ETFs will become more common in client portfolios.
AI adoption has accelerated sharply in the global wealth management industry compared to 2025, this year’s study also revealed. While last year’s participants said that they viewed AI primarily as a tool for efficiency and reporting, this year:
- 68% view AI as critical for competitiveness compared with last year when advisors cited manual processes and insufficient technology platforms as major obstacles.
- 44% say they are lagging the broader financial services industry highlighting a widening perception gap relative to last year’s more generalised frustration with outdated systems.
- 95% expect to increase AI investment.
“AI is rapidly becoming a core capability in wealth management – but its role is evolving differently than in other parts of finance,” said Joseph Wickremasinghe, an Executive Director on MSCI’s Research and Development team. “Advisers worldwide are using AI to enhance efficiency, improve portfolio construction and support personalization, rather than to replace human judgment. As data quality and integration improve, AI’s impact will deepen across the entire investment lifecycle.”
