Every year, the industry talks about change - new wrappers, new channels, new client expectations. But when you spend your days immersed in messaging houses, websites, adviser journeys, and product narratives, it becomes clear, quite quickly, which changes are bubbling up to the surface and will become strategic priorities and which are just noise.

This year, our team completed over 20 peer reviews for asset and wealth manager clients. They covered 120+ competitors across an incredible spectrum of alternatives, multi asset, ETFs, sustainability, infrastructure, adviser platforms and institutional distribution.

Our research helped us understand how firms are telling their story, how they differentiate, how products are framed, how digital journeys actually function, and where white space exists.

From these peer reviews, we have been able to identify four top themes from 2025.

1. Alternatives moved from “Access” to “Applicability”

In alternatives, the industry has decisively moved past “access” as a meaningful differentiator.

Garrett Oakley, a partner in Alpha's Wealth Management division, put it best: “Everyone can offer access. Not everyone can offer an experience. The firms that will stand out in 2026 are the ones making alternatives easier to understand, easier to own, and easier to talk about with clients."

Where once being able to access alternatives was a differentiator, it is now table stakes. What matters today is how clearly a manager can show the role alternatives can play in client portfolios and the outcome it supports.

Looking to 2026, we expect a greater push toward showcasing applied intelligence to build a more robust client experience and understanding of alternatives: practical tools, scenario illustrations, forward-looking insights, and frameworks that help an adviser say: “Here’s when this strategy matters, here’s why, and here’s the client outcome it supports.”

In other words: we’ve left the era where the value was Alts as a tool in the toolbox; the value now is in helping clients know how and when to use it.

2. Wealth channels are demanding simplicity - and firms are becoming increasingly editorial

It was all about wealth in 2025, particularly in alternatives and private markets, with firms looking to enter the space and update their content to reflect what’s actually resonating with advisers. What’s working now is content that feels curated, contextualized, and immediately usable in client conversations.

This isn’t about simplifying the substance. It’s about editorial clarity, shaping information so it answers the questions advisers truly get from clients. Across our reviews, we saw firms rethinking how they package and present their narratives: translating specialist strategies into everyday language, reorganizing content around client needs rather than product taxonomies, and simplifying naming systems so purpose and outcome are clear at a glance.

In many cases, firms moved away from dense product descriptions and toward editorial-style storytelling - clearer headlines, practical proof points, meaningful visuals, and messaging built to be repeated by advisers, not deciphered by them.

This shift also showed up in design and format choices: lighter, warmer color palettes, more lifestyle-oriented imagery, and a move away from long quarterly outlooks toward short “key takeaways” videos featuring senior leaders.

3. Digital journeys were exposed - and fixing them is becoming a competitive edge

Across our peer reviews, one challenge surfaced again and again; the quantity of content is increasing, but the ability to navigate it isn’t improving.

Too many sites in our reviews were still structured around internal business units rather than investor needs.

Product pages rarely answered the most basic questions: What problem does this solve? Who is it for? How should it be used? And naming conventions often made strategies impossible to find through search.

Journeys also failed to distinguish between adviser workflows and end-client education, forcing every user down the same generic path.

With that said, the strongest firms are building pathways in their site, not pages. That means designing navigation around real investor questions, creating problem-solution-proof points for every product, simplifying naming to match search behavior, and separating adviser journeys from client journeys so each user gets what they actually need.

4. Tone of voice came back into focus - because brand became a distribution tool

As AI accelerated the sheer volume of content across the industry, firms realized that a distinct and consistent voice is now one of the few dependable ways to stand out. Our CMO research reinforces this: 80% of CMOs say brand has become a strategic priority over the last 12 months, driven by content proliferation and the need for clarity at scale.

Across our peer reviews, we saw firms move toward more human, approachable communication; step away from default “asset-management speak” and technical posturing; and invest in narrative systems that are flexible enough to scale across regions, channels, and formats - yet distinct enough to be recognizable in a sea of AI-generated content.

Tone of voice is no longer a brand flourish, in 2025 it became a core part of content strategies.

How to win in 2026

Taken together, these trends point to a simple shift: the firms winning in 2026 likely won’t be those with the most products, the biggest platforms, or the loudest marketing.

They’ll be the ones who communicate with purpose and clarity; the ones who make complex ideas usable, build digital experiences around real investor questions, articulate in ways that support decisions rather than just allocations, and speak with a voice distinctive enough to cut through the noise.

If you are interested in understanding how Alpha Agency can help with your strategy for 2026, please don't hesitate to get in touch.