BCG’s 2026 Global Investor Survey delivers a clear message to corporate leaders: investors believe in the economic potential of AI, but they are concerned about frothy market expectations and want proof that AI investments pay off. AI is seen as a key source of future market returns, driving profitability and growth across most sectors, without necessarily being a competitive game-changer that will determine future winners and losers.
That skepticism about AI is part of a broader complex landscape. While investors are bullish about the medium term, they expect four distinct but interconnected forces—Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, interest rates, shifting US government policies, and AI—to determine the outlook for capital markets. Considering these uncertainties and the high expectations priced into current index levels, they expect future market returns to be moderate.
In this environment, investors want companies not only to make bold long-term bets but also to maintain the financial discipline to fund the journey without endangering near-term performance or risking their financial health. As a result, companies will need to make their priorities, key tradeoffs, and future milestones explicit to allow investors to build confidence in their path forward.
This survey, the 14th edition since 2009, canvassed more than 500 institutional investors representing approximately $35 trillion in combined assets under management across 16 countries. (See “About the Survey.”) This article highlights key findings. The slideshow below provides a more detailed and comprehensive picture of the results.
About the Survey
Approximately 90% of the survey respondents are portfolio managers and buy-side analysts. They cover a broad spectrum of investing types and styles, including value, income, growth at a reasonable price, and core growth. Two-thirds of the respondents said their typical investment horizon is longer than three years.
The survey was conducted at the height of market volatility triggered by the onset of conflict in the Middle East—mainly before the April 8 ceasefire and the subsequent market recovery to new all-time highs. At the same time, global equity markets were up more than 15% from their levels when the prior global survey was conducted in November 2024.
Medium-term bullishness is holding, but return expectations have declined modestly. Globally, 67% of investors describe themselves as bullish or extremely bullish for the next three years, while only 8% are bearish or extremely bearish. The net of 59 percentage points, up 9 points from 2024, is a sign that medium-term conviction remains intact despite a turbulent market environment. Regionally, Asia-Pacific leads in bullishness with 76% of investors, while North America follows with 71%. Europe and the Middle East trails with 55% and is the only region where three-year bullishness declined versus 2024.
Yet even as bullish sentiment holds, investors’ expectations for market-level total shareholder return (TSR) over the next three years have slipped to an annual average of 6.9% globally—down 0.4 percentage points since 2024 and 1.4 percentage points since 2023.
Four forces drive uncertainty in the current environment. Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East was a top-three factor cited by 60% of respondents as influencing capital markets—an increase of 29 percentage points since 2024 amid the ongoing conflicts. The concern is most acute in Europe and the Middle East, where 78% of investors cite it as a top-three factor. This was followed by interest rate policy (54%) and US federal policies (49%). AI development and regulation was cited by 45%, up 22 percentage points from 2024.
What defines the current environment is not the magnitude of any single concern but their simultaneity and interconnection.
What defines the current environment, however, is not the magnitude of any single concern but their simultaneity and interconnection. For example, the conflict in the Middle East has driven oil prices higher, reaccelerating inflation, keeping interest rates elevated, and raising the cost of corporate investments—including in AI.
Tariffs further complicate the picture, with investors expecting broadly negative consequences across corporate margins (cited by 69% of investors), consumer price levels (69%), consumer spending (68%), stock market performance (64%), corporate revenues (62%), and GDP growth (57%).
Investors have shifted their focus toward structural winners that will deliver attractive growth with favorable economics. When asked how their investing practices have changed over the past year, investors’ most common responses indicated a shift toward sectors that benefit from structural tailwinds (52%) or the macro environment (46%), as well as holding more cash or dry powder (50%). This is reflected in BCG’s 2026 Value Creators rankings, which show investors pivoting from software and IT services companies toward asset-heavy industries.
Among company-specific investment criteria, long-term organic growth outlook remains the dominant consideration, cited by 54% of investors as a top-five priority. Return on capital was cited by 33% of investors, up 8 percentage points from 2024—a signal that investors are balancing growth expectations with a more rigorous view on capital efficiency.
Investors recognize AI’s potential but believe markets have overshot on valuations. Among survey respondents, 87% expect AI to materially improve corporate fundamentals within the next two years. Yet, 56% view the market as too optimistic on AI—the highest such reading among likely market drivers—and 73% believe that current valuations and bullish AI expectations are likely to create future valuation and TSR headwinds.
Investors expect AI’s benefits to be real, wide ranging, and near term—but not competitively decisive. Investors expect AI to boost labor productivity (cited by 74% of investors), corporate margins (69%), investment levels (66%), and corporate revenues (62%). Looking across industries, investors expect AI to create positive impact in health care (cited by 83% of investors), technology (80%), financial institutions (76%), and industrials (72%). With 53% expecting AI’s impact on corporate fundamentals to be underway or beginning within the next 12 months, the window for companies to show results is narrowing fast.
But few believe these benefits will reshuffle competitive landscapes permanently. Two-thirds expect AI to create efficiency gains that accrue broadly to all companies (39%) or to generate only temporary first-mover advantages that level out over time (27%). Moreover, only 22% see AI as a source of sustainable competitive differentiation—raising the bar for AI strategies and investments, as well as how executives communicate them to investors.
Many companies have yet to earn investors’ confidence on AI. Among survey respondents, 77% deliberately evaluate the AI strategies of the companies they invest in and consider it critical for management teams to have a clear and compelling AI narrative. Yet only 57% agree that companies report appropriately on their AI agendas, and just 58% see AI strategies reflected in corporate valuations—gaps that represent a significant opportunity for companies that can close them.
Seventy-seven percent of surveyed investors deliberately evaluate the AI strategies of the companies they invest in.
Beyond a narrative, investors are focused on execution: more than 70% are concerned about whether companies have the technical and organizational capabilities required to succeed with AI. At the same time, respondents are watching AI spending closely. More investors view current AI investment levels as too aggressive (37%) than too conservative (22%). And support for funding AI through margin dilution is limited: only 41% are willing to accept dilution that exceeds 1 to 2 percentage points, even on a temporary basis of one to two years.
Investors want companies to invest boldly but without sacrificing near-term performance or endangering their financial health. Taking a broader view, half of all investors fully expect companies to balance near-term earnings-per-share delivery with long-term investments. When forced to choose, however, three times as many would prioritize longer-term growth (37%) over near-term results (13%). The message for corporate leaders is clear: investors will support bold strategic choices—organic investment, portfolio reshaping, and focused acquisitions—but not at the cost of financial discipline. More than three-quarters of investors (78%) avoid companies with leverage levels above three times net debt to EBITDA, up 12 percentage points from 2024, and more than half (53%) are cautious even at leverage levels around two times. More than two-thirds (69%) expect at least consistent dividends.
A clear and compelling investment thesis is more important than ever. For CEOs and their leadership teams, three imperatives for an investor strategy and communications program are particularly important in this demanding environment.
- Know your investor base. Understand your shareholders’ current thesis and expectations in-depth, including whether they foresee any significant moves such as shifts in strategy, large investments, or acquisitions. Build your narrative grounded in that reality, addressing any misconceptions that need to be dispelled and reinforcing the convictions that are already working in your favor.
- Be explicit about how the forces shaping your sector affect your outlook. Investors want to hear directly from management whether the headwinds or tailwinds they experience are temporary or structural, and what that implies for the company’s performance outlook and investment priorities. On AI specifically, be clear about how it creates competitive advantages for your business—not just productivity gains.
- Give investors a clear line of sight to returns. Broad strategic narratives will not hold up against the scrutiny that sustained macro uncertainty and elevated valuations invite. Show investors the expected returns of your choices, be that with respect to growth strategies, cost reduction, portfolio reshaping, capital allocation, or AI investments, and make the associated tradeoffs and milestones explicit.
Ultimately, in an era when AI investment has become both a necessity and a test of management credibility, what separates the companies that will maintain, or gain, investor confidence is not only the boldness of their strategies but also the discipline and transparency with which they execute that strategy. Investors will reward the leaders who show them not just where the company is going, but how the path will lead there—and why the journey merits their investment.
