Nasdaq’s 2026 Global Voice of the Issuer Study found private markets were the highest-ranked area of client demand in every surveyed region, while 80% of asset managers reported using artificial intelligence somewhere in product development.
The survey, conducted with Escalent, covered 406 senior investment-product professionals at firms with at least $25 billion under management. The sample comprised 356 asset managers and 50 insurers across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and South Korea.
Private Markets Rank First Across Regions
Among institutionally focused firms, 82% of respondents in the Americas put private markets among their five leading areas of client demand. The equivalent shares were 71% in Asia-Pacific and 67% in Europe.
Demand does not remove the measurement problem. Fifty-eight percent identified private-market benchmarks as the largest unmet need presented in the survey, ahead of digital asset benchmarks at 41%. Respondents active in private markets most often pointed to differentiated data and a clear investment narrative as ways to stand out.
AI Adoption Is Broad but Concentrated
Although four in five asset managers said they use AI, only 26% reported active use across multiple stages of development. Idea generation was the most common application at 69%, followed by product design at 61%.
For firms not yet using AI or still exploring it, compliance and a lack of internal expertise were joint leading barriers at 53%. Half cited doubts about the accuracy and transparency of outputs. The numbers suggest experimentation is widespread, while deeply integrated production use is much less common.
Finding Demand Is Easier Than Reaching Scale
Seventy-one percent said it is becoming harder to break through a crowded market, and 66% said many new products fail to gather meaningful assets. Brand credibility led the list of differentiators at 55%, while design innovation was cited by 46% and pricing and distribution by 42% each.
The study was published by an index provider with a commercial interest in product design and benchmarking, so its conclusions should be read with the sample and sponsor in view. Its strongest finding is still useful: managers broadly agree on the growth themes, but data, distribution and institutional approval remain the bottlenecks.