of equity team time goes to strategic work - analysis, planning, and stakeholder engagement.
2026 Equity Management Outlook
Your equity team is strategic. Your systems haven’t caught up yet.
Equity teams now shape the decisions that reshape the business: 95% are involved in M&A deal structuring alone. Yet most are still stuck in spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and manual reports. New research on why and what it costs teams under pressure.
400 equity professionals surveyed
Conducted with Hanover Research
The strategic gap
Leadership relies on equity teams for M&A, governance, and comp, but most teams still describe their function as operational. Inside report: See where the hours actually go.
characterize their equity management function as primarily operational.
AI adoption patterns
AI adoption is broad but shallow. Nearly 3 in 4 equity teams use it, but fewer than 1 in 4 use it extensively. Inside: the most and least common use cases, and why Equity professionals are right to hold the line on trust until the output earns it.
Access use casesThree main challenges
Fragmented systems, compounding strain
Most teams run three or more disconnected systems. Growth is making the problem worse fast.
Scattered data
0%
are concerned their systems won't scale
Inside report: How many still run on spreadsheets and the capabilities teams say they need to scale,
Real-time data, slow answers
Real-time visibility into equity data is nearly universal now. Turning it into a usable report still isn't.
Slow answers
0%
take five-plus hours to produce a standard report
Inside report: The reporting capabilities teams are prioritizing over the next two years.
Pressure-point failure
M&A, restructuring, liquidity events: the high-stake moments that matter most are exactly where the friction hits hardest.
Pressure points
0%
of equity teams are involved in M&A deal structuring
Inside report: The broker constraint most public companies would change — and what’s holding them back.
Get the full report
Complete the form to download the full research report. Get complete findings, charts, and strategic recommendations behind what 400 equity professionals revealed about the future of equity management.