Partner content by David Sawyer, CEO and Founder of Unlimited.ai.
A consensus is forming about the future of the private markets right now. It goes something like this: for the private markets to grow to $40 trillion+ through the wealth channel, all data must be standardized and distribution will be controlled top down to retail portfolios.
Only then can the private markets achieve the industry’s true growth potential. In this future, a few platforms will win the distribution war, big box alternative investment products will own the market, and the chaos of today's landscape will resolve into something streamlined and centralized. It will just be a slightly less liquid version of the public markets’ status quo, in essence.
At Unlimited.ai, we believe the future looks very different. Our view is that access channels will proliferate, not consolidate. That view is shaped by over a decade of democratizing access to the private markets for high net worth individuals and family offices, prior to founding our company.
While the digitalization of the public markets over the last 50 years was done largely within the rails of regulated exchanges, the digitalization revolution that’s occurring today exists in a private markets ecosystem that remains fragmented and loosely governed. Unlike the public markets, there are no exchanges with powerful regulatory moats to compel standardization in the private markets.
Regulations are actually accelerating this trend by allowing a broader segment of Americans the ability to invest in private investments, and there’s an often-overlooked phenomenon coinciding with this: the explosion of access.
When SpaceX went public last week, there were hundreds of SPVs on the cap table and that doesn’t include the second and third layer SPVs in these SPVs.
RIAs across the country are rushing to offer HNWI clients and prospective clients more alternative investment opportunities in order to compete. Direct access investment clubs, digital networks, and sector-specific investment marketplaces specifically tailored to HNWIs are growing rapidly.
A family office or high net worth individual that used to hold five or six manager relationships through one intermediary now routinely holds twenty or thirty directly, spread across vintages, strategies, and geographies.
According to Capgemini’s 2026 World Wealth Report, the number of HNWIs working with only one wealth provider declined by 50% from 2019 to 2025 and the number working with 4-6 firms grew by 100%. Less than 20% of HNWIs today work with only one wealth management provider. This dramatic shift is largely caused by more access channels.
Technology is the major enabler of this and it’s only accelerating with AI. It’s easier than ever to invest in a private fund or SPV. Subscription document completion, capital call funding, portal retrievals, complex portfolio reporting, and data analytics are now being streamlined by platforms like ours in minutes. Only a few years ago this could take days. Funds and private securities are now even being tokenized and we expect this to only enhance the ability to transact in illiquid assets more seamlessly.
So what does this mean for the future of the private markets?
The talking heads pitching the consensus future tend to be the ones building the next would-be distribution infrastructure and it's worth asking who actually benefits if that vision plays out. A platform that aggregates supply and demand around its own rails is optimizing for its own toll booth, not for the individual investor seeking a less fee-heavy, more transparent and diversified portfolio.
We think the future portfolio has more volume of investments, more counterparties, more types of securities, and more complexity.
The way to solve for the future won’t be by standardizing the distribution. It will be to build the infrastructure capable of managing it all – funds, direct investments, SPVs, public securities, interval funds, real world assets, digital assets, and whatever else the future invents that unlocks prosperity.
The future is decentralization and technology is the only pathway to create clarity from the chaos.
Technology - specifically AI - can be the great equalizer for the private markets, allowing individuals or small teams to invest like the most sophisticated institutions in the world in any asset class, any geography, and at any minimum. That's the future we’re building for.
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David Sawyer is the CEO and Founder of Unlimited.ai, the AI-native investment platform built to give family offices unmatched portfolio intelligence and clarity through a single integrated system. With more than 2,400 integrations and a fund database of over 500,000, the platform delivers real-time insights that empower informed decisions. Book a 30-minute demo at Unlimited.ai →
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