Family Offices Rank AI as Top Investment Priority

Artificial intelligence now tops the investment priority list for family offices globally, according to a JPMorgan Chase survey reported in February 2026. Bloomberg

The base behind that ranking totals $5.5 trillion in wealth as of 2024, according to a 2024 Deloitte report. Deloitte projected that figure would reach at least $9.5 trillion by 2030. TechCrunch

An earlier Reuters Breakingviews estimate put family office capital at $5.4 trillion by 2030. Reuters The two figures differ because of definitions and timing. The direction is consistent. More private wealth sits in family office structures, and more of it is aimed at private technology risk.

UBS sized the current cohort in its 2026 Global Family Office Report, which surveyed 307 family offices worldwide with an average net worth of $2.7 billion. Djoann Fal, a family office advisor and investor at the private wealth platform Atlas Capital in San Francisco, operates in that segment of the market.

Private capital built for direct exposure

Alternative investments, meaning private equity, venture capital and private credit, now make up 42% of the average family office portfolio, according to the UBS 2026 report. UBS Private equity means stakes in private firms. Venture capital means early bets on startups. Private credit means loans to private borrowers.

Direct deals reached 13% of the average portfolio in 2021, up from 9% in 2019, according to UBS tracking. Total family office deal activity peaked in 2021 at 17,460 deals worth roughly $1.05 trillion globally, according to PwC's Global Family Office Deals Study.

Direct and merger-and-acquisition deal activity fell by 53% in 18 months by late 2023, according to PwC. Family offices have no quarterly redemption cycle and no public reporting calendar for outside backers in the conventional sense. They could pause, hold existing private positions, and re-enter on their own timetable.

The broader context here is that patience is their edge. Without fixed payout dates, they could sit out weak pricing and return when terms improved.

Goldman Sachs described that repositioning in its 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report titled Adapting to the Terrain, which examined how family offices allocate capital. Nearly 40% of surveyed family offices plan to increase allocations to public equity, or shares listed on stock markets, in the next 12 months, according to Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs In Europe, 67% of family offices plan to make changes to strategic asset allocation in 2026, according to UBS.

In my view, the structure matters as much as the totals for tech firms. A 42% alternatives bucket with a history of direct investing means founders pitch principals and small teams more often, not only fund managers. Diligence can move fast when it works. Governance is thinner. Follow-on capacity rests on a single family balance sheet rather than a pooled fund.

Use is universal, ownership is not

About 86% of family offices are using AI, according to a global study by Ocorian. Only 7% are currently investing in the AI sector, according to the same study. Ocorian

Internal deployment covers deal sourcing, memo drafting, portfolio monitoring and back-office automation. Equity exposure to model builders, infrastructure providers and applied AI companies involves technical risk, valuation discipline and access.

The broader context here is that this split helps explain the ranking. Running a tool inside the office is straightforward. Buying a stake calls for a view on the technology, the price and entry to the deal.

Family offices in Southeast Asia are the most AI-focused globally, with 88% already invested in AI, the highest of any region, according to UBS's 2026 Global Family Office Report. Other regions are now moving to close that spread, with AI at the top of the global priority list.

Capital is also moving down the stack and out to the edge. Family offices are investing billions in physical AI startups, looking beyond AI chips for the next tech giants. Bloomberg Physical AI means applied systems that sense, move and act in production settings.

In my view, that shift is legible to anyone tracking compute costs. Chips took the first scarcity premium. These applied systems pose a different test around reliability, unit economics and fit with existing workflows.

The broader context here is familiar from past platform shifts. Cheap testing inside the firm often comes before concentrated bets outside it. Teams adopt tools for documents, code help, customer triage and analytics, learn where failure modes sit, then form firmer views on which vendors and designs deserve lasting capital. The 86% to 7% spread looks less like contradiction and more like sequencing.

In my view, the near-term effect for founders and technical leaders is access to flexible equity that prefers direct stakes and co-investment alongside established managers. The constraint will be technical diligence. Teams are lean. They rely on trusted operators, advisors and data rooms that answer questions on model evaluation, data rights, inference cost and security posture. Clear answers there will travel faster than talk of market size.

In my view, the long arc still favors builders. A larger wealth base, a higher alternatives share and a stated preference for AI point toward more company formation outside public markets. Risks around concentration, valuation and due diligence are real, and they deserve sustained attention. What this enables, if executed well, is a longer runway for applied AI to move from pilot to production with owners who can afford to wait for the engineering to work.