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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.

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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.
Niall O’Sullivan

Global Chief Investment Officer, Investments and Retirement, Marsh

What did the research tell us:

Asset owners intend to increase allocations to infrastructure, inflation-linked assets, emerging market equities, credit, and cash; the ongoing private-market expansion has become more selective. The breadth of the planned shifts in portfolios signals a change in the composition of risk.

  • In the past 12 months, 48.4% have adjusted geographic exposure amid macro and geopolitical headwinds.
  • 50.7% plan to increase allocations to infrastructure this year.
  • 96.3% of portfolios include private-market exposure and all of the Private Markets we looked at show a net increase in allocation intentions.
  • 44.0% of asset owners are pursuing “greater selectivity” across private markets, as valuations remain the most significant factor shaping capital deployment; asset owners’ plans across private markets indicate a shift into a phase of intentionality with many pursuing the advancement of more mature private markets programs.

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.

The Marsh Global Asset Owner Barometer 2026

Find out about the capital shifts unfolding across portfolios and the factors shaping investment decisions.
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      [1] The Marsh Global Asset Owner Barometer 2026 study gathers the views of 430 global asset owners with over US$5 trillion in assets under management about portfolio decision-making and construction practices. The sample includes an Institutional group (pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and foundations) and a Wealth Management group (wealth managers, private banks, family offices).  Investors were based in 25 different countries from EMEA (42%), Asia-Pacific (28%), and North America (30%). The research was conducted via an online survey by CoreData Research from June to July 2026. It is important to recognize that survey results are subject to inherent limitations and uncertainties. The survey results may not capture all relevant factors or market conditions. It is important to note that respondents may have received a form of indirect compensation from CoreData Research to complete the survey, in the form of a voucher or charitable contribution of their choosing.