Betting on AI, Planning for Succession: The Gap Facing Family Offices
Key takeaways
AI is the top investment pick for family offices in 2026, yet roughly half report incomplete or non-existent succession plans.
Family offices are not betting blindly: three in four expect an AI investment bubble to burst within five years, so the question is who holds the decision when it does.
Surveys measure succession differently, but they point the same way: documented, complete plans are the exception, not the rule.
The gap is less about technology than about people: who owns the decision, who runs the office, and whether the next generation understands its role.
85% of North American family offices name artificial intelligence their top investment pick for the next 12 months. Half of them report an incomplete or non-existent succession plan.¹
Those two facts come from the same survey, and they describe two very different kinds of planning. One is an allocation decision that can be made in a quarter. The other is a governance decision that can take years. This article looks at what the data shows about family office succession planning, how it compares with the AI bet, and why the gap matters.
Where Family Office Attention Is Going
The Portfolio Bet
In the 2026 North America Family Office Report from RBC and Campden Wealth, which surveyed 155 offices with an average total wealth of $2.25 billion, AI was the top investment pick over the next 12 months, selected by a combined 85% of offices.¹ ² UBS’s 2026 Global Family Office Report, based on 307 single family offices, found that 65% were already invested across the AI value chain, and that despite valuation concerns they planned to maintain or increase their exposure.⁴
The Operating Bet
AI is also entering the office itself. Half of the offices in the RBC and Campden survey say AI is now embedded and essential to their workflow. Yet 73% still believe investment reporting is too manual, a top concern for three years running.¹ Cybersecurity and data breaches are the top near-term operational concern, cited by 59% of respondents, up from 16% a year earlier.¹
The Risk They See
This is not a naive bet. According to RBC Wealth Management’s summary of the report, 75% of respondents expect an AI investment bubble to burst within five years, and just as many expect AI to disrupt employment.² For longer-term risks, 51% cited failure to upgrade technology, ahead of family members being unprepared for succession and family conflict.³
Figure 1: Horizontal bar chart, “AI: the bet and the doubt.”
Three numbers worth knowing
85%: family offices naming AI a top investment pick for the next 12 months.¹
50%: offices reporting an incomplete or non-existent succession plan.¹
6%: offices that help younger family members understand their role after succession.¹
Family Office Succession Planning: Where the Gap Shows Up
Surveys Measure It Differently
The gap appears in every major survey, but the numbers depend on how each defines a plan:
RBC and Campden report that half of offices have an incomplete or non-existent succession plan.¹ RBC’s own summary page breaks that down as 23% with no plan and 52% with an informal plan that has not been documented.⁵
UBS found that only 35% have a defined succession plan for the family office itself.⁴
J.P. Morgan reports that 86% lack clear succession plans for key family office decisions.⁶
The measures differ, so they are not interchangeable. The consistent finding is that complete, documented plans are the minority.
Figure 2: Comparison table, “Succession plans: four readings.”
The Timing Is Closer Than It Looks
Generational change is already underway. Twenty-three percent of offices in the RBC and Campden survey experienced a generational transfer within the past five years, and the share controlled by third-generation-or-later families rose from 22% to more than 26%. One in five offices was formed within the past six years, which means new wealth creators have their own succession ahead of them.⁵ Citi found that roughly a third of its respondents expect a leadership transition within five years.⁷
Not everyone expects an imminent shift: of the offices still awaiting a transfer, 52% do not expect one for at least a decade.⁵ The scale of what is moving is large. Cerulli Associates projects $124 trillion in U.S. wealth will transfer through 2048, including $105 trillion to heirs and $18 trillion to charity.⁸
Figure 3: Three-callout row, “Generational change in numbers.”
The Next Generation and the Office Itself
Only 26% of offices help younger family members understand their role after succession.¹ And nearly a third of offices are concerned about the retirement of key family leaders and staff.⁹ As one RBC executive put it, succession planning has to address the people running the office day to day, not just the balance sheet.⁹
Why the Gap Matters
Two features of the data stand out when the AI bet and the succession gap are read side by side.
The horizons overlap. Three in four RBC and Campden respondents expect an AI bubble to burst within five years, and a third of Citi’s respondents expect a leadership transition in the same period.² ⁷ These are different surveys, so they do not describe the same offices. But an allocation made today may mature, or unwind, under different leadership than the one that made it.
Technology does not replace key people. AI can reduce manual work in an office, but the judgment behind a concentrated allocation sits with individuals. If the person who made the decision leaves, the successor inherits the position without necessarily inheriting the reasoning.
What Remains Unclear
These are self-reported surveys of large offices: average net worth was about $2.25 billion in the RBC and Campden sample and about $2.7 billion in UBS’s.² ⁴ They ran at different times, from UBS’s January to March 2026 fieldwork to Citi’s June and July survey, and define succession plans differently.⁴ ⁷ None of the data shows that offices with large AI exposure are the same ones with incomplete plans, so the pattern is a gap in the sector and not a finding about individual offices. AI bubble expectations are opinions, not forecasts. Nothing here is investment, legal or tax advice.
Questions Worth Asking
If the person who made our largest allocation decision stepped away tomorrow, who would own it, and would they understand why it was made?
Is the succession plan documented, or does it live in conversations?
What would trigger a review of our AI exposure, and who decides?
Are the next generation involved in investment decisions before a transfer, or only after?
Who runs the office day to day, and is that role part of the succession plan?
How much of our technology and cybersecurity resilience depends on specific individuals?
What I find interesting is that both decisions are long-term bets. An allocation to AI is a view on the next decade of technology. A succession plan is a view on who will make decisions over the next decade of the family. A portfolio can be well diversified across AI exposures and still depend on a single person’s judgment. The question I would ask is not whether the allocation is right, but who owns it when circumstances change.
Sources
¹ RBC Wealth Management and Campden Wealth, 2026 North America Family Office Report, press release, September 29, 2026 (155 family offices).
² RBC Wealth Management, “From caution to confidence: How family offices are reshaping their strategies in 2026” (summary of the RBC and Campden report).
³ Wealth Solutions Report, “Report: North American Family Offices Optimistic About AI, Private Equity,” 2026.
⁴ UBS, Global Family Office Report 2026, press release, May 28, 2026 (307 single family offices; survey conducted January 22 to March 30, 2026).
⁵ RBC Wealth Management, The North America Family Office Report 2026, report page.
⁶ J.P. Morgan Private Bank, 2026 Global Family Office Report (333 single family offices), as presented on J.P. Morgan’s The Family Office Forum 2026 page.
⁷ Citi Wealth, 2026 Global Family Office Report, press release, September 22, 2026.
⁸ Cerulli Associates, “Cerulli Anticipates $124 Trillion in Wealth Will Transfer Through 2048,” December 5, 2024.
⁹ Canadian Family Offices, “‘Confident but not complacent’: Highlights from the latest RBC/Campden Wealth family office report,” 2026; Wealth Professional, “Half of family offices lack a complete succession plan: report,” 2026.
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