RIAs are lagging behind wirehouses in their adoption of alternative investments for clients, according to survey results released by research firm Alternative Investments Market Intelligence.
The survey found that national RIAs committed to investing in alternatives reported that 29.9% of their clients hold alternative investments, with a weighted average allocation of 11.2%. Those figures imply that 3.35% of client assets have been allocated to alternatives.
However, looking at the broad RIA market, the implied client allocation to alternatives remains at just 0.78%, trailing behind both wirehouses and broker/dealers. Some of the major hurdles for RIAs in getting clients to invest more in alternatives include higher fees, a shortage of operational support and a preference for indexing, ALTSMI researchers note.
“There is not a major bank or wirehouse or regional firm that doesn’t offer some level of private market alternatives to the client,” said Mark Goldberg, founder of ALTSMI. “There’s universal adoption across the wirehouse and regional segment. That is not the case in the RIA segment.”
In fact, wirehouse clients currently hold the highest implied allocation to alternatives, at 3.75%—largely because of their high average weighted allocation (16.1%). Factors that helped wirehouses drive strong adoption of alternatives include institutional infrastructure, technology support, access to proprietary investment research and specialized teams to facilitate such investments, according to ALTSMI.
Independent broker/dealers report that just 8.7% of their clients have allocations to alternatives. However, their average allocation is still ahead of the RIA segment, at 13.4%.
Looking forward, committed national RIAs do expect to catch up to wirehouses in alternatives allocations next year. In 2026, they forecast that the share of clients with alternatives in their portfolios will jump to 35%, while wirehouses expect to reach 29% and independent broker/dealers 13%. National RIAs also expect the weighted average for client allocations to rise to 15%.
One of the biggest hurdles to adoption of alternatives by RIAs that are interested in the asset class is that, without the same type of operational support that wirehouses have, they are largely limited to relying on registered funds that offer some form of liquidity and ease of reporting. “There is a substantial number of funds that wouldn’t make it into RIA firms because of the structural requirements,” Goldberg said.
The survey comes at a time when many financial services firms are launching new private markets funds and establishing new platforms to help RIAs invest in a wider range of alternatives products. Intermediaries, including Fidelity, Goldman Sachs and Wells Farg,o are partnering with TAMPs and alternative investment platforms to offer streamlined access to private market investments through SMAs, UMAs and custom model portfolios. In addition, research firms such as Morningstar and XA Investments have launched rating systems and indices for products such as semiliquid funds and interval funds to help RIAs accurately track their performance.
ALTSMI based its findings on the results of its 2025 Alts Leaders Survey and was weighted based on firms’ 2025 capital raise. The respondents included 41 firms representing $126.5 billion in capital projected to be raised this year for private market alternative investments. Among the respondents were the top 10 independent broker/dealers, eight of the 10 largest wirehouses and regional banks, eight of the top national RIA firms with AUM of $25 billion and some custodians.
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