The Marsh Global Asset Owner Barometer 2026
The discipline of choice: How asset owners are reallocating capital and strengthening portfolio control
Asset owners face an increasingly wide range of choices when considering asset allocation. While this expansion has broadened the investment opportunity set, it has also made the task of identifying the most appropriate exposures more complex and demanding.
The Marsh Global Asset Owner Barometer 2026[1] presents a picture of organizations making clearer, more selective choices.
Global Asset Owner Barometer : Canadian overview
Over the next 12 months, Canadian asset owners expect several issues to have the greatest influence on portfolio decision-making. The most significant are changes to monetary policy and interest rates, cited by 87% of respondents, followed by geopolitical risk at 80%, slowing global economic growth at 73%, and private market pricing and constrained exits at 70%. In each case, Canadian respondents are more focused on these issues than the global average.
Looking ahead, Canadian asset owners are also taking a distinctive view on asset allocation. Infrastructure stands out as the strongest growth area, with 66% planning to increase allocations, compared with 51% globally. Interest in emerging market equities is also strong, at 62% versus 47% globally, while commodities remain attractive, with 52% expecting to increase exposure, compared with 34% globally.
Private markets remain a core part of the portfolio mix. While 97% of Canadian respondents are active private market allocators, many are taking a more selective approach: 43% are maintaining the pace or scope of commitments but with greater discipline, and 20% are rotating within private markets rather than increasing exposure.
Canadian asset owners also appear to be among the most advanced in their approach to portfolio construction. Nearly half (47%) say they fully integrate asset class and total portfolio decision-making, above 29% globally. This is reflected in a broader reassessment of traditional portfolio models, with 73% agreeing that the 60:40 framework is outdated due to the breakdown in traditional asset class correlations.
These findings should be read as directional insights from Canadian respondents, rather than a representative view of the whole Canadian market.
This year’s findings help deliver a clear message. Across global institutional and wealth portfolios, strong governance continues to be an investment strength: Clear objectives, reliable information, well-defined decision-making, and the capacity to act, helps to create differentiation. Where portfolios become a collection of products – rather than a clear expression of an institution’s objectives – complexity can erode differentiation.
Global Chief Investment Officer, Investments and Retirement, Marsh
What did the research tell us:
The forces shaping near-term decisions differ from those driving long-term portfolio design. Geopolitical risk dominates the 12-month horizon, while technology and automation lead asset owners’ structural agenda over the next five to ten years. Asset owners are having to respond to current disruption without losing sight of the forces capable of reconfiguring return drivers, sector economics, and capital-market assumptions.
- 75.1% consider geopolitical risk a significant influence on portfolio decision-making over the next 12 months.
- 82.8% consider technology, automation, and broader disruption significant over a five-to-ten-year horizon.
Asset owners are directing capital toward technology faster than they are building governance around its use across their organization. Investment is accelerating across data, analytics, and operating systems, although mature systems and clearly defined investment applications remain uncommon. The gap between expenditure and governance reinforces the broader challenge of converting technological potential into repeatable investment capability.
- 57.7% identify AI tools and/or use cases as a capital-expenditure priority over the next 12 months.
- 13.3% have enterprise-wide AI controls and defined investment use cases in place.
Asset owners’ operating models are evolving more slowly than the opportunity set they are expected to support. Strategic asset allocation remains the dominant approach to portfolio construction, although organizations are introducing more portfolio-wide analysis, dynamic rebalancing, and cross-asset coordination. The pace of change is constrained by the quality of information available to investment teams, committees, and boards.
- 66.5% continue to operate within an asset-class-led strategic asset-allocation framework.
- 38.4% identify inadequate decision-quality data or analytics as a constraint on effective decision-making.
