Investors look for resilience and innovation in 2026

Download the full PwC Global Investor Survey 2025

As investors increasingly focus on long‑term value creation, sustainability is becoming a defining lens through which they assess corporate resilience, technology deployment, and strategic stewardship. In its 2025 Global Investor Survey, PwC identified a variety of themes: among these, three interconnected topics seem to be shaping investment decisions for 2026, each one of them underlining how critical it is for companies to prioritise more sustainable, future‑ready, and resilient business models.

In today’s business landscape, sustainability goes beyond transparency. It has become a driver for capital deployment and long‑term value creation. Investors are making this clear, as 84% of them want companies to maintain or increase investments in climate adaptation, signalling a decisive pivot from “tell me your ESG story” to “show me how sustainability delivers a measurable business impact.”

In effect, the survey shows strong investor appetite for companies taking concrete sustainability action:

These figures show that sustainability‑driven performance is no longer a secondary consideration: it has become a core criterion shaping investment decisions across sectors.

With the intensification of cyber risks, technological disruption and inflation, investors expect companies to build credible resilience strategies.

 
One number from PwC’s survey illustrate how resilience is climbing the agenda:

This reflects a shift from “what is your risk register?” to “show me how your organisation stays resilient under real‑world stress, including climate shocks.”

AI continues to dominate investment priorities. Investors are calling for increased capital allocation to enterprise‑wide AI and technology transformation, provided it is anchored in strong governance, transparency, and responsible‑AI frameworks:

This signals a shift from “tell me you’re experimenting with AI” to “show me the measurable impact of AI on your performance, sustainability and efficiency.”

The companies that can demonstrate they are building resilience, scaling responsible AI, and embedding sustainability as a value driver are the ones best positioned to earn investor confidence in 2026.