2026 Growth Investing: Capturing AI Infrastructure and Global Market Penetration

The investment case for 2026 rests on two powerful, scalable trends: the relentless expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure and the broadening of global market participation. Wall Street's consensus is clear: AI is not a passing fad but a "revolutionary" technology that will drive capital expenditure and productivity gains for years. This view is nearly universal, with major institutions calling it the defining theme for equity markets. The optimism is so entrenched that the biggest risk, as JPMorgan Wealth Management notes, is "not having exposure" to this transformation. This sets the stage for a broad-based bull market, where the primary driver shifts from valuation expansion to fundamental earnings growth.

Goldman Sachs Research provides a concrete framework for this growth, forecasting 11% global equity returns over the next 12 months. Their outlook is built on a foundation of continued global economic expansion and modest monetary easing, particularly from the Federal Reserve. Crucially, they argue that returns in 2026 will be "driven more by fundamental profit growth rather than by rising valuations". This is a critical pivot for growth investors. It means the focus must move beyond just the tech giants to companies across all sectors that can leverage new AI capabilities to boost efficiency, create new products, and capture market share. The growth vector is no longer confined to Silicon Valley.

This is where the thesis for global diversification becomes essential. The 2025 experience showed that diversification across regions was rewarded, with non-US markets outperforming the S&P 500 for the first time in nearly 15 years. This trend is expected to continue, extending to different investment factors and sectors. For a growth investor, this means looking beyond the familiar US tech leaders to identify companies in Europe, Asia, and emerging markets that are effectively integrating AI into their operations. The scalability of the AI infrastructure build-out-spanning data centers, chips, and software-creates a massive tailwind for these global players, allowing them to accelerate their own market penetration and profitability. The setup is for a broadening bull market where AI is the engine and global diversification is the fuel.

Scaling the Growth Engine: TAM, Penetration, and Platform Efficiency

The true test for a growth investor is not just identifying a big market, but finding a business model that can efficiently capture it. The multi-trillion dollar AI infrastructure build-out provides the ultimate tailwind, but the winners will be those with scalable platforms that can penetrate fragmented industries. The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for AI is astronomical, and the financial services sector is a prime example of where this scalability is being proven.

Consider the wealth management industry. The market for financial planning services is vast and growing, driven by a widening wealth gap and rising client expectations for holistic advice. This creates a powerful TAM for technology that can scale the delivery of advanced planning. The evidence shows a clear trend: private equity is pouring capital into this fragmented space, with nearly $1 trillion in M&A activity for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and broker-dealers. The rationale is straightforward. These are not just buying assets; they are acquiring sticky client bases and, crucially, scalable platforms that can standardize and automate high-value services. This is the essence of scalable growth-leveraging a proven model to rapidly expand market share. The setup is for a broadening bull market where AI is the engine and global diversification is the fuel.

The platform efficiency is where AI becomes the game-changer. Traditional software tools are limited, often focusing on a single discipline like retirement planning. The next generation of platforms, like FP Alpha, are designed to scale the unscalable. By automating analysis across 16 unique planning disciplines, from tax and estate to insurance and legacy planning, it moves far beyond basic software. The platform ingests complex client documents-tax returns, wills, policies-and instantly surfaces actionable insights. This isn't just a productivity tool; it's a service delivery engine. It allows a single advisor to offer comprehensive, high-touch planning at scale, dramatically increasing their capacity and revenue per client.

This model directly addresses a key friction in the industry: the high cost and time required to deliver sophisticated, multi-faceted advice. By automating the heavy lifting, AI platforms lower the marginal cost of each additional client. This creates a powerful flywheel. More clients mean more data, which improves the AI's recommendations, which attracts even more clients. For a growth investor, this is the ideal setup. You're not just betting on a large TAM; you're betting on a business model that can capture it efficiently, with a clear path to high-margin, recurring revenue as it scales. The financial services sector is a blueprint for how AI infrastructure can be applied to unlock massive, previously untapped growth in service industries.

Catalysts, Risks, and What to Watch

The path to sustained growth in 2026 hinges on a few critical catalysts and risks. For investors, the focus must be on forward-looking signals that confirm the AI infrastructure boom is translating into real economic impact, while also monitoring vulnerabilities in the consumer base that fuels demand for premium services.

The primary driver of the AI investment theme's sustainability is the pace of capital expenditure and its real-world productivity payoff. The consensus is that AI is a "revolutionary" technology that will drive massive CAPEX. The key question is whether this spending is generating the promised returns. Investors should watch for evidence that companies are successfully deploying AI to boost efficiency and create new revenue streams, not just burn cash. A slowdown in this spending cycle, or a widening gap between AI investment and measurable productivity gains, would be the clearest signal that the boom is losing steam.

A parallel risk to monitor is the health of top-income consumer spending. The wealth management sector is a bellwether for this group. While the share of wealth held by the top 10% reached 69% in 2025, their spending patterns are crucial. Signs of a broad economic deceleration often first appear in discretionary outlays from this cohort. If data shows a meaningful slowdown in high-end spending, it could signal a broader downturn that would pressure demand for specialized financial planning services and other premium offerings.

On the flip side, the widening wealth gap itself is a powerful, persistent catalyst. The concentration of wealth creates a stable, high-value client base for services that offer peace of mind, cybersecurity, and multi-generational planning. This dynamic supports the scalability of AI platforms in wealth management, as they can standardize high-touch advice for a growing number of affluent clients. The catalyst here is continued adoption of AI tools by wealth managers, which is already accelerating. A recent survey found more than two-thirds of wealth management firms are already using Gen AI, with half piloting or using it at scale. The metric to watch is the transition from pilot programs to full-scale operational deployment, which will drive the productivity gains and cost efficiencies that fuel growth.

In summary, the setup is one of powerful tailwinds meeting identifiable risks. The AI CAPEX cycle and top-income consumer health are the twin engines to monitor. For growth investors, the opportunity lies in companies that can navigate these dynamics-leveraging AI to capture the expanding wealth of the top 10% while proving that the infrastructure build-out is a productive investment, not a speculative bubble.