2026 Florida Trust Economic Outlook: AI Leads the Way
Posted on February 2, 2026
Florida Trust Wealth Management began the new year with its annual 2026 Economic Outlook events, global economic overviews that also looked at artificial intelligence and growth opportunities for the year ahead.
The Q&A style programs, held at the end of January throughout Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida featured insights from four of the wealth management company’s industry experts:
– Ian N. Breusch, CFA, Chief Operating Officer
– Kristian R. Jhamb, MBA, CFA, Chief Investment Officer
– Logan S. Webb, CFA, CFP®, Executive Vice President, Senior Portfolio Manager
– Jodi Schwartzel, Vice President, Senior Portfolio Manager
Breusch began with opening remarks followed by a brief review of the 2025 economy and expectations for 2026. He stated that for the first time in several years international stocks outperformed domestic stocks. He also reported that the S&P 500 outperformed expectations and finished over 6,800, for a 16% return. For 2026 he anticipates some ongoing volatility in the market but expects U.S. equities to hold well.
During the panel discussion Breusch began by mentioning that the consumer is strong, the U.S. economy is solid; however, simultaneously unemployment is ticking up, and labor markets are beginning to show signs of deterioration. He asked Webb how do we reconcile those competing forces?
Webb responded, “There are two parallel economies, one booming, while the other somewhat in shambles. The good news is the strength of the upper end of the consumer continues to drive markets higher.” He added, “The bad news is, consumers who don’t own appreciating assets, those who are paycheck to paycheck, unfortunately cannot keep up with inflation. This dynamic is causing the wealth gap to widen further. Here we find increasing debt, diminished saving, slowing spending, and an economy that is not exactly thriving. Because of these two parallel economies, we believe investors need to be selective, as not all companies will be impacted equally.”
Breusch later led the conversation to artificial intelligence, or AI. This has been a dominant investment theme since October 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT.
Jhamb led the AI conversation by stating, “It’s an incredibly complex ecosystem. A lot of interconnections and cross-financing are taking place, impacting the ability to assess true AI demand.” He mentioned that the leading players in AI are Nvidia, Amazon, Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and of course, OpenAI.
Schwartzel expanded on the AI conversation, adding, “AI and technology remain both powerful and promising, yet the landscape is quickly broadening beyond the traditional pockets of growth we have seen over the past three years in the Magnificent 7.” The Magnificent 7 is a term coined in 2023 to describe a group of seven dominant, high-performing U.S. technology and tech-adjacent companies that have driven a significant portion of the stock market’s gains in recent years. They are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.
When asked what gives her the confidence that the market is going to broaden beyond Mag 7, she said, “Companies that are adopting AI across manufacturing, education and other areas will start to see cost efficiencies, new product offerings and other new solutions to complex challenges. Both consumer and corporate AI demand have led these companies to implement aggressive, costly projects to build data centers, expand cloud capacity, and begin to construct supercomputing hubs. In 2026, we anticipate more diverse market participation as these projects come to fruition in the next nine to 12 months.”
Webb mentioned that the labor market will be an important factor in 2026 and AI could play a role. Baby Boomers, from which more than 10,000 per day are turning 65, are retiring each year in the U.S. and we simply do not have enough workers coming up to replace them.
“Perfect timing for a meteoric rise in AI-related technology,” said Webb. “I’m envisioning a future where the U.S. economy is more productive with less human capital thanks to advancements in technology. But let’s not ignore the unemployment numbers; AI will certainly replace some jobs. But it will also create a whole new sector of additional jobs that didn’t exist in the past in addition to creating efficiencies and boosting productivity and GDP in the process.” Jhamb added with remarks that the U.S.’s economic outperformance of other developed peers has been attributed to labor productivity, which itself is likely due to strong capital investment, R&D spending, and AI early adoption. Schwartzel also noted how recent federal legislation could provide an additional and meaningful fiscal-side boost in 2026.
Jhamb added that the AI secular investment theme will require several things to go right in order to continue into a fourth year. “The alpha dog at the top, OpenAI, needs to continue to do well, as it is so intertwined with the other players in the ecosystem. The hyperscalers, those builders of datacenter capacity, also need to get a better handle on cost pressures.”
Jhamb also addressed the geopolitical front and financial markets, primarily concerning China and Taiwan. “Taiwan is ground zero for most of the world’s technology chip production, and about 50% of the world’s shipping volume passes through the Taiwan Straits between Taiwan and China. If China were to impose a blockade, it could easily trigger a bottleneck in the Taiwan Straits and halt both global shipping and the manufacture and delivery of those chips critical to the AI narrative.” He noted that is still a highly unlikely scenario but a space worth monitoring, as opposed to many other geopolitical headlines that long-term investors can safely look through.
Schwartzel concluded the team’s remarks by stressing that rebalancing, investment selection, and diversification will be important to focus on in 2026. Overall, the panel was broadly optimistic on the prospects of the market run continuing, underpinned by strong macro- and company-level fundamentals.
Click here to view the replay of the video presentation.
For more information about Florida Trust Wealth Management and its services, visit FloridaTrust.com.
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