Jan 9, 2026
At the turn of the calendar year, many people reflect on the events of the previous 12 months and speculate on what may come in the next 12. In this spirit, many market prognosticators release predictions and forecasts around what investment moves they think you should make.
This might be of little concern to most buy-and-hold investors, but it’s food for thought — and could be useful to more active traders and speculators.
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Citrini Research, a firm that provides institutional investors with insights into thematic equity investing, is among those that recently published their bets for 2026.
Citrini’s watchlist for the new year is only available to subscribers, but Business Insider (BI) highlighted some of the firm’s “top bets” in an article published Dec. 19 (1).
Thematic investing focuses on finding investment opportunities that arise from macrotrends expected to drive growth worldwide. The concept has been growing in popularity. Global assets being managed in thematic funds reached a three-year high of $779 billion in the third quarter of 2025, according to Morningstar’s Global Thematic Fund Landscape Report 2025 (2).
Security, artificial intelligence (AI) and the digital economy are among the fastest-growing investment themes, per Morningstar. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the themes for 2026 that Citrini identifies is AI-related — but with a twist.
Here are three asset categories listed as “top bets” on Citrini’s “thematic watchlist” for 2026.
1. AI workforce changes
There’s debate over whether AI will result in net job losses or gains as the industry continues to grow, but there’s little disagreement that it’s causing disruption in the workforce — and some companies are turning to AI in an effort to reduce their labor costs.
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Citrini is bullish on stocks from companies that are most likely to outperform by reducing headcount using AI, reports Business Insider.
Citrini screened companies by developing its own “bureaucracy score,” which measures how robust a company’s management layers are, while assigning a “margin optionality score” to determine how much a company would benefit from a smaller workforce. It identified more than 30 companies across a range of industries that it expects could benefit from this theme.
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2. Automating slop bowls
Slop bowls, where food ingredients are tossed together with little regard for presentation, have grown in popularity — and so have restaurants that serve them. From Mexican to Mediterranean restaurants, several chains now feature “bowls” on their menus.
Restaurants notoriously have low profit margins, so it’s no wonder some may be exploring automation to find efficiencies, including in back-of-house operations, which don’t interact with the restaurant’s guests.
Citrini expects slop bowl chains to benefit from this back-of-house automation, BI says, allowing them to reduce labor costs. In addition to restaurant chains themselves, Citrini believes companies providing automation could also benefit.
3. Maintaining drug-assisted weight loss
Originally designed to treat Type 2 diabetes, the popularity of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss exploded in recent years. Now, consumers who’ve successfully taken off weight using GLP-1 drugs are faced with the challenge of keeping the weight off once they stop using them.
Citrini believes this provides an opportunity to drug companies that can meet this challenge by producing a new class of drugs that deliver long-term metabolic benefits, according to BI.
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The risk and rewards of thematic investing
If these themes pique your interest, you may want to chat with your financial advisor about how to incorporate these or other themes into your portfolio. But keep in mind this brand of investing still comes with risks.
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According to a report by the BlackRock Investment Institute, thematic investments “carry a higher degree of unique risk — that is, risk not explained by common risk factors” (3).
For example, it could expose you to concentration risk if you invest heavily in assets that are all related to one theme. It could also expose you to potential short-term volatility (since these themes are often a result of rapidly evolving innovation and change).
Thematic investing isn’t a passive form of investing. Since you’re trying to predict the future, you’ll need to regularly reassess your investment thesis.
These factors are among the reasons that “most thematic funds continue to underperform global equities over the long term,” according to Morningstar. Still, thematic investing may provide the potential for long-term growth and exposure to non-traditional sectors and assets within a diversified portfolio.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Business Insider (1); Morningstar (2); BlackRock Investment Institute (3)
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Vawn Himmelsbach is a veteran journalist who has been covering tech, business, finance and travel for the past three decades. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Metro News, Canadian Geographic, Zoomer, CAA Magazine, Travelweek, Explore Magazine, Flare and Consumer Reports, to name a few.
