Private markets and AI top asset manager priorities as scale becomes the real challenge

Private markets have emerged as the undisputed growth priority for asset managers across every major region, while artificial intelligence is now embedded in most product development processes. But a new global study suggests the industry's most pressing problem is capitalizing on it at scale.

The 2026 Global Voice of the Issuer Study, released by Nasdaq, Inc. this week and conducted in partnership with research firm Escalent, gathered responses from 406 senior investment product professionals including 356 asset managers and 50 insurance firms at organizations with $25 billion or more in assets under management across seven countries.

The findings point to an industry that has aligned on its strategic targets but faces mounting headwinds in execution.

"Asset managers have identified where they want to grow," said Emily Spurling, Global Head of Indexes at Nasdaq. "The harder question is what it takes to get there."

Private markets dominate client demand

Across both institutional and advisor-facing channels, private markets ranked first among the product areas that clients are requesting most, a finding consistent with broader industry data. Among institutional-focused firms in the Americas, 82% placed private markets in their top five demand areas, compared with 71% in Asia-Pacific and 67% in Europe.

That demand is running headlong into structural gaps. Among surveyed respondents, 58% identified private-market benchmarks as the largest unmet need (the top-ranked gap in the entire survey) followed by digital asset benchmarks at 41%.

For those asset managers already active in private markets, access to differentiated data and a clear investment narrative each ranked highest, cited by 27% of respondents, as the factors most critical to standing out in a crowded field.

AI is everywhere, but thinly deployed

Eighty percent of asset managers globally now report using AI in some capacity during product development, a figure that climbs to 84% in Asia-Pacific.

But the depth of that adoption tells a more complicated story. Only 26% deploy AI across multiple stages of the process. Most confine it to idea generation, cited by 69%, and initial product design at 61%, leaving later-stage functions largely untouched.

For firms that have yet to move beyond exploration, compliance concerns and lack of internal expertise each ranked as barriers among 53% of those respondents, while questions about the accuracy and transparency of AI outputs followed at 50%.

The industry is also divided on whether AI belongs in go-to-market messaging. Sixty-three percent believe AI use should feature in how products are communicated externally. Those opposed (concentrated in European markets) worry the signal reads as experimentation rather than expertise.

Scale is the defining challenge

The study's most pointed finding may be this: 71% of asset managers say it is increasingly difficult to break through in a crowded market, and 66% say many new product innovations struggle to accumulate meaningful assets. The bottleneck, the data suggests, sits less in product design and more in brand, distribution, and the broader go-to-market infrastructure behind it.

Brand credibility and recognition ranked as the leading competitive differentiator globally, cited by 55% of respondents, ahead of unique product design at 46%, pricing at 42%, and sales distribution capability, also at 42%.

Distribution constraints are particularly acute in the Americas, where 54% of firms flagged distribution as a top barrier to scale, and 58% still depend on wealth channel home office approvals to reach meaningful asset accumulation.

Firms are adapting through data-driven targeting, cited by 54%, greater use of digital distribution at 50%, and expanded advisor education programs at 43%.

Regional fault lines

The study also reveals meaningful divergence in how priorities and constraints map across geographies.

In the Americas, firms show the deepest engagement in digital assets, at 32% versus 13% in Asia-Pacific, and options-based strategies at 48% versus 17%. Decision-making is distribution-led, with 64% involving distribution and sales teams directly in go-to-market calls.

In Europe, regulatory complexity is the primary barrier to product scale, cited by 51% of respondents, reflecting the layered demands of MiFID II, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, and divergent national implementation standards. European firms also hold the highest speed-to-market expectations globally.

In Asia-Pacific, AI adoption leads all regions at 84%, and appetite for external research support is the strongest of any geography.

Index providers under pressure to do more

Asset managers are redefining what they expect from index providers ; no longer just benchmark construction, but earlier-stage engagement across research, product design, and launch support.

Sixty-eight percent say they need index provider involvement during the product design phase, and 65% say it would be valuable for an index provider to function as an extension of their internal research team.

Competitive intelligence ranked as the support most wanted from external partners, cited by 53%, followed by research and insights at 45% and global market coverage at 39%. On delivery, there is a meaningful gap: 73% of asset managers expect a new index product within six months, but only 62% say that timeline is consistently met.

The full 2026 Global Voice of the Issuer Study is available at https://a-nasdaq.vev.site/voice-of-the-issuer-2026.