Reviewed through 20 July 2026
For the first time, a single investment theme commands the majority of family office attention. UBS 2026 finds sixty-five percent of surveyed offices citing artificial intelligence as a current theme. AI in healthcare follows at thirty-three percent. Power and resources, infrastructure, and defense round out the top five.
The full top-twelve themes map directly onto the productive capacity behind the AI build-out. Power, infrastructure, automation, robotics, longevity, space, nuclear, quantum, and transition materials. The cluster is a coherent bet on the capital expenditure cycle for AI, rather than a scattered list of preferences.
65%
of family offices cite AI as a current investment theme
Largest single share ever recorded on any theme in the UBS GFO.
Top family office investment themes
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Top family office investment themes (%)
Share of family offices citing each theme. AI is the dominant theme at 65%.
Source: UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.
Concentration risk is the unspoken story
The concentration risk is structural. Most family offices do not have the internal research depth to size the AI value chain correctly. They can buy an index, a manager, or a private placement. They cannot independently underwrite the operating economics of a data center, a power purchase agreement, or a hyperscaler customer contract.
Geopolitical and trade risk is the macro overlay. Sixty-four percent of offices name a major geopolitical conflict as the leading twelve-month risk. Forty-nine percent name a global trade war. Together those two dominate the risk chart and govern which parts of the AI value chain can be underwritten on a five-to-ten-year horizon without policy surprise.
Top risks for the next 12 months
ChartChart
Top risks for the next 12 months (%)
Major geopolitical conflict is the primary risk; global trade war and inflation follow.
Source: UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.
Offices are answering the first question yes, more often than the second question is fully resolved.
Where Vereles sees the work
For principals, the discipline is to separate two questions. Do we have exposure to the theme, and can we survive the trade and policy environment it lives in. The first is comparatively easy. The second is the work. We help offices map exposure across the AI value chain, test it against plausible trade and policy scenarios, and write the rebalancing rules for the parts that change under stress.
What a principal takes away.
- 01AI is the first single theme to command majority family-office attention at 65%.
- 02The theme cluster maps onto the AI capex cycle, not scattered preferences. Power, infrastructure, defense, robotics, and longevity are the supporting stack.
- 03Concentration risk is structural. Most offices lack internal depth to underwrite the value chain.
- 04Trade and policy risk dominate the 12-month outlook. The exposure is well-known; the underwriting of the environment around it is not.