Cerulli sees advisers' private-market assets nearly doubling

U.S. advisers have already put $2.2 trillion into private capital that is less than fully liquid. Cerulli Associates expects another $2 trillion to arrive over the next five years. The near-doubling will reshape portfolio construction and wrapper selection as much as asset-flow totals.

PLANADVISER first reported the findings in “The Cerulli Report: U.S. Private Markets 2026.” Asked what will drive alternative growth over the next three years, asset managers put availability first, at 93%. Sixty-seven percent said advisers need to demonstrate value to clients. Fifty-seven percent cited demand for income-producing investments. Availability at the top tells you the product set is full. The next constraint is the model.

The interval fund sits at the center of that shift. Cerulli identifies it as the preferred semi-liquid vehicle, and the survey answers support that. Seventy-nine percent of asset managers already offer interval funds. The category held roughly $132 billion at year-end 2025. That total was spread across 147 funds. Cerulli's $2 trillion projection covers all less-than-fully-liquid private capital, so the interval fund's share of the growth depends on how much new money flows through models.

Cerulli's distribution forecast lays out the route. Growth will run through partnerships among traditional asset managers, private-market firms, technology platforms, turnkey asset management providers, trust companies and recordkeepers, and will reach clients through model portfolios and multi-asset vehicles. For an RIA, that is a design question: which sleeve goes in which model, under which liquidity terms, and at what cost.

The model question comes first. Private market sleeves do not rebalance on a daily tick. They need periodic contribution targets and a stated tolerance for the gap between reported value and realizable value. A sleeve inside a 60/40 model changes the retirement conversation, because an interval fund's repurchase offer is not a same-day wire. The allocation has to be sized so gated liquidity does not drive cash-flow planning. That moves the advisor's job from sourcing private markets to constructing with them.

The fee conversation follows. A client who sees an interval fund's expense ratio next to the public-market ETF it displaced will ask what the extra cost buys. The answer has to be liquidity design and income mechanics, not an assumed return premium, and it has to come before the first flat quarter. Cerulli's managers cite income-producing investments as a growth driver, which puts yield at the center of the pitch and makes the fee tradeoff visible.

If a turnkey asset management provider or model provider packages an interval fund sleeve, the rebalancing and liquidity decisions are made upstream. The advisor's job becomes explaining the wrapper. That is a different skill from picking a private-market fund, and it is the skill behind the 67% who say advisers must demonstrate value.

Define the sleeve before the flows arrive. A private market allocation with a stated size, a rebalance band, and a stated withdrawal treatment is an answer to a client's question. An allocation that grows opportunistically is a liability. The value sits in the construction, not in the product itself.

Cerulli's projection is not a directive for any single RIA to add private markets. It describes a product set and a model design built for a doubling. The firms that win the allocation will be the ones with a repeatable process for sizing, liquidity, and fees. A more useful gauge than the $2 trillion is the share of advisor models that give interval funds a permanent slot.