MSCI (MSCI) 2026 RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference summary

Business model and data differentiation

• Proprietary data from GPs and LPs forms the core, with derived analytics and benchmarks built on decades of historical datasets.

• Acquisition of Burgiss and RCA expanded data depth, especially in private equity, credit, and real estate, with robust time series since the 1980s.

• Data is sourced directly from asset owners, not via FOIA or manager contributions, ensuring high quality and reliability.

• Integration across asset classes enables a holistic, cross-asset offering rather than siloed business lines.

• Differentiation comes from proprietary methodologies and intellectual property in analytics and benchmarks.

AI and technology strategy

• Generative AI accelerates data ingestion, normalization, and extraction, reducing costs and increasing speed.

• AI is used internally for product design, rapid prototyping, and engineering, boosting operational efficiency.

• Client-facing tools now feature natural language interfaces and connectors to major LLM providers for flexible data access.

• Agentic AI is being developed to automate complex analytical tasks and interact with client-side agents.

• AI-driven innovation is central to new product development and platform enhancements.

Market trends, headwinds, and growth drivers

• Real assets faced secular challenges post-2022 due to rising rates and COVID, but repositioning focuses on closed-end funds and new asset types like data centers.

• Private capital business is seeing strong growth post-Burgiss integration, with global sales and client engagement accelerating.

• Secondary trading in private equity is booming, driven by liquidity gaps and delayed distributions, creating demand for analytics and indexation tools.

• Private credit faces concerns over credit quality and liquidity, but transparency and risk tools, including Moody's Analytics, address these needs.

• Demand for transparency and rigorous portfolio construction is rising, especially as private assets become a larger allocation in institutional and wealth portfolios.