AI Research Spending Jumps 40% While Asset Managers Keep…
By Rick Steves
AI summary of the source article
Asset managers increased spending on AI-enabled research tools by 40% over the past year, while overall research budgets rose by only 0.4%. This shift redistributes existing expenditure rather than creating new revenue for research providers.
Why it matters
This creates a commercial problem for the sell side, which is investing in machine-readable content and new distribution methods while facing limited evidence that clients are willing to increase payments.
Key facts
- Spending on AI tools and research analytics grew 40% year-over-year, while overall research budgets increased by just 0.4% in H1 2026.
- AI-enabled research analytics and tooling now represent approximately 7% of the average research budget.
- Sell-side firms have not yet generated meaningful additional revenue from delivering research directly into buy-side large language models.
Source excerpt · FinanceFeeds
Investment managers are spending considerably more on AI-enabled research tools without materially increasing their overall research budgets, according to a new survey from Substantive Research covering 50 asset managers overseeing $20 trillion. The firm's latest research-spending analysis found that average global budgets increased by just 0.4% in monetary terms during the first half of 2026, eve…