Asset-owner surveys are most useful when they show a change in ranking, not a restatement of last year’s favourites. Marsh’s 2026 Global Asset Owner Barometer does that. Infrastructure posts the strongest net increase in planned allocations, with just over half of respondents intending to raise exposure. Inflation-linked assets and emerging-market equities sit next. Cash records one of the largest year-on-year sentiment swings, moving from net negative territory in the prior survey to a solid net increase.

Niall O’Sullivan, Global Chief Investment Officer at Marsh Investments and Retirement, has framed the shift as a pursuit of diversification, inflation protection and flexibility against a backdrop of heavy capital spending on AI infrastructure, data centres and semiconductors. Nearly half of owners report having adjusted geographic exposure over the past twelve months. More than a third reduced overall portfolio risk. The same share increased liquidity or cash.

Private markets remain nearly universal: over 96 per cent of portfolios already hold private-market exposure, and net intentions stay positive across the private sleeves Marsh tracks. The tone has changed. Selectivity and valuations now dominate deployment language. Private debt’s net intention score has cooled from the prior survey’s peak even while remaining positive. That is not an exit. It is a maturing programme choosing underwriting over volume.

For an Asian pension or insurer CIO the transferable points are clear. Infrastructure is no longer a satellite. It is the consensus real-asset answer to inflation and long-duration liabilities. Emerging-market equities are being used to diversify developed-market concentration. Cash is being rebuilt as dry powder, not only as a defensive residual. Private credit and private equity still attract capital, but the bar on price and structure has risen.

Wholesale coverage should split the conversation. One brief is infrastructure equity and debt with cash-flow and inflation linkage that an ALM committee can defend. Another is EM equity that is not simply a China beta substitute. A third is liquid credit and cash management that preserves the option to redeploy when private-market entry points improve. A single “alternatives are growing” pitch no longer matches the selectivity in the data.