Recent Signals: Week 49
Three shifts worth paying attention to
AI continues to dominate the headlines, but the real shifts this week sit beneath the surface: where capital is concentrating, how the infrastructure story is maturing, and what is actually preventing AI adoption inside wealth organisations. Here are the signals that matter.
1. AI capital is moving up-market
Anthropic’s planned 2026 IPO at a projected $350 billion valuation, combined with family offices piling into late-stage mega-rounds, is reshaping the investable landscape. What we’re seeing is a barbell form: dominant foundational players on one end, niche applied-AI bets on the other, and very little interest in the middle.
Why it matters: Liquidity expectations in AI are rising again. Family offices with AI exposure may face new valuation pressure — or opportunity — as secondary markets open in the run-up to 2026.
2. AI is becoming an infrastructure play, not just a software story
BlackRock’s framing of AI as the “largest innovation buildout ever” and Europe’s financing of sovereign-backed compute facilities both point to the same trend: the centre of gravity is shifting from models to the industrial stack beneath them.
Compute, energy, and data-centre infrastructure are entering the investable universe for long-term capital.
Why it matters: Many family offices are more comfortable with hard assets than venture-style software bets. Infrastructure could become the cleaner, more durable way to gain AI exposure.
3. Governance, not technology, is the real barrier to adoption
New research from FNZ highlights the shift toward agentic AI — systems that execute workflows, not just generate content. Yet surveys show fragmented tech stacks remain the biggest roadblock, and early capital is now flowing to companies building governance guardrails for regulated environments.
Why it matters: The constraint inside most family offices isn’t capability. It’s control. AI will only scale once governance layers mature, and that maturation has only just begun.
The takeaway
The noise continues, but the signals are becoming clearer: capital is concentrating at the top, AI infrastructure is institutionalising, and governance is emerging as the decisive layer between experimentation and real operational change.