The super-rich are done waiting for the world to settle down.
A new report from UBS reveals that 60% of family offices globally say they plan to change their strategic asset allocations over the next 12 months, a figure that dwarfs the 35% who said the same thing a year ago and the highest reading since the bank began tracking the question.
The findings, drawn from 307 family offices surveyed between January and March 2026 with an average family net worth of $2.7 billion, paint a picture not of panic but of quiet, deliberate repositioning. These investors are not running for the exits. They are rebuilding portfolios to withstand a risk environment they increasingly believe is permanent.
Major geopolitical conflict tops the list of concerns on both near- and long-term horizons, cited by 64% of respondents as a worry for the next 12 months and 61% over the next five years with virtually no expectation that the threat recedes.
Debt anxiety is accelerating in the opposite direction: only 31% flag a debt crisis as a near-term concern, but that number swells to 56% when respondents look five years out. Recession risk follows the same arc, moving from 17% now to 50% over the longer horizon.
The convergence of those two trends (geopolitical fragmentation and sovereign debt stress) is reshaping how these investors think about currency as much as asset class.
Confidence in the US dollar is eroding fast. Fully 65% of family offices expect the dollar's reserve currency status to weaken over the coming year, while just 6% see it improving. Nearly half describe themselves as overexposed to the greenback, a distinction that applies to no other major currency in the survey. The Swiss franc and the euro are the most commonly cited alternatives for diversification.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents say they have already reduced or are actively considering reducing exposure to dollar-denominated assets, while 30% are increasing diversification across multiple currencies.
The shift is particularly pronounced outside the US. European and Asian family offices, which still tilt heavily toward North American assets, are now looking to rebalance toward Western Europe and Asia Pacific.
American family offices are moving in a different direction entirely. US-domiciled respondents increased their allocation to North American assets from 86% in 2025 to 88% this year, a home bias that UBS notes has strengthened even as geopolitical uncertainty has mounted.
On the asset allocation side, the changes are targeted rather than wholesale.
Developed market equities and fixed income remain the backbone of portfolios globally at 41% of strategic allocations. But the margins are moving: emerging market equities are seeing modest increases, infrastructure is drawing more attention, and real estate is being trimmed — expected to fall from 11% of allocations in 2025 to 8% among those planning changes in 2026.
Gold, long a rounding error in family office portfolios, is inching up. Average allocations sit at 2% globally but are expected to rise to 3% among those making changes.
Artificial intelligence remains the dominant thematic bet, with 65% of family offices currently invested across the AI value chain from data center infrastructure and semiconductor producers to software platforms and healthcare applications.
Despite widespread acknowledgment that parts of the AI market may be overheating, the vast majority of respondents plan to maintain or grow their exposure. Fear of missing out is explicitly part of the calculus.
Infrastructure, electrification, and longevity round out the thematic priorities, suggesting that conviction in structural, long-duration themes is holding even as near-term volatility creates noise.
Formal governance processes have become standard: 68% now use financial performance measurement, 60% have investment committees, but the softer infrastructure of institutional continuity lags badly. Only 35% have a succession plan for the family office itself, and just 27% have any organized process to prepare the next generation for future responsibilities.
That gap is particularly consequential given the scale of intergenerational wealth transfer underway. The UBS Global Wealth Report 2025 estimates roughly $83 trillion in assets will change hands over the next two-plus decades.
"While succession planning for family members is becoming more common, there remains significant room for improvement in establishing succession plans for the family office itself, as only a small percentage have such plans in place," says Jan van Bueren, Senior Family Advisor, Wealth Planning & UHNW Advisory at UBS.
What the 2026 report describes, taken as a whole, is a cohort of enormously wealthy investors who have concluded that the elevated, interconnected risk of the current moment is not a cycle to be weathered but a condition to be engineered around — one reallocation, one currency hedge, one jurisdiction at a time.
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