Q&A: Scaling Investment Products in a Crowded Market: Lessons from Future Proof Festival

More than 5,000 people from across wealth and asset management gathered in Huntington Beach, California, this September for Future Proof Festival. Attendees came from firms representing a combined $22 trillion in assets, and more than 300 sponsors took part. A Nasdaq group was on site spanning Index, Dorsey Wright, ETF Listings and ETF Solutions.

The festival opened several days after Nasdaq released its 2026 Global Voice of the Issuer Study, which reflects the opinions of 406 senior investment product professionals at asset managers and insurers across seven countries. 71% said it is increasingly difficult to break through in a crowded market, and 66% said many new products struggle to accumulate meaningful assets.

Jillian DelSignore, Head of Investor Distribution and Insights at Nasdaq, spoke with the Nasdaq Newsroom about what she heard at Future Proof and what it says about the climate for investment professionals today.

Nasdaq Newsroom: Why does the Future Proof gathering matter to Nasdaq?

Jillian DelSignore: Nearly every part of our business that touches the financial advisor is there: index licensing, distribution, insights, marketing, ETF listings. Most of our clients are there too, and people are more willing to have a real conversation on the beach than in a conference center. Seems funny, but the environment has mattered. This year it came right on the heels of our Voice of the Issuer study, so we heard the same challenges two ways: first in the data, then face to face from the people dealing with them.

Nasdaq Newsroom: Where did the conversations on the ground line up with what issuers told you in the study?

Jillian DelSignore: Distribution remains the absolute juggernaut. I have been saying for years that ETFs are sold, not bought. There are so many ETFs in the market, and advisors are overwhelmed when deciding which to select for their client portfolios. Heads of Distribution tell me they are struggling to differentiate themselves, and they are looking for partners like Nasdaq to help, whether that’s supporting events like lunch meetings or providing content and research.

The other thing coming through loud and clear is retail. When an ETF launches, retail is one of the first accessible buyers. We think of retail as monolithic, but it is quite a diverse audience, one that many issuers are asking us how to reach.

Nasdaq Newsroom: What is working for the firms that do break through?

Jillian DelSignore: A few things. The first is thought leadership. The smaller issuers that have done well stayed focused on their expertise. They create content that can speak to various audiences. The second is reaching retail. How do they create content that matters to those investors? The third is practice management. Leading with a product pitch is a quick way to have a wall go up. Advisors want you to help them build their business and support them through education on portfolio construction and product selection. Anything you can do to help educate an advisor on the markets or specific strategies or bring practice management tactics can be a winning strategy.

Nasdaq Newsroom: Private markets ranked first in client demand in every region the survey covered. How is that playing out with advisors?

Jillian DelSignore: Private markets are very popular right now with the advisors I spend time with, and some of that exposure has made its way into the ETF wrapper. But advisors are seeing more of these strategies on their platforms, and it’s hard to tell them apart. Where does it fit in the portfolio? That’s where brand matters. It came through as the top differentiator in the study, and you see it in the field. The firms standing out are either a brand name advisors already know, or firms that are out in front of advisors with education: what it is, why it matters, and who it is for.

Nasdaq Newsroom: 80% of asset managers in the survey use AI in product development, but only 26% use it across multiple stages. Where are firms getting value beyond experimentation?

Jillian DelSignore: Distribution is the clearest one. Every morning a salesperson asks: who do I call? Data tells you who owns which ETFs. The next step is predictive: Which ETFs might this advisor buy, based on how they’ve engaged with you?

Content and marketing are the others. Firms are using AI to create once and deploy in many formats. It speeds things up, but the human oversight has to stay: Does this sound right? Is that the right data? Things like that. One of the marketing panels at Future Proof put it well: AI can make you more efficient, but don’t lose your voice. If you start to sound too much like AI, you lose credibility.

Nasdaq Newsroom: Putting Future Proof and the survey together, what is the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for 2027?

Jillian DelSignore: The challenge hasn’t changed: How do you get your product into investors’ hands when the list of products on the buyer’s desk keeps growing? How do you differentiate? How do you get your wholesalers better prepared with data, AI, and practice management?

The opportunity for us is what happens after the sale. A lot of the focus in our industry goes into getting a product to launch. We see ourselves as a partner well beyond that. People know Nasdaq. Fewer, especially in retail, know Nasdaq Index, so we are working to elevate that brand specifically and the brands of the clients whose products track our indexes. My team is building content on the indexes that are used by wealth specialists who are working daily with ETF issuer salespeople and advisors. What they hear in the field shapes what we consider writing about next – a virtuous circle of investor feedback. We are commercialization partners for the long haul.