Global Equity Investor insight | January 2026

Jan 22, 2026
Jeremy Richardson 80 x 80.jpg
Jeremy Richardson

Are we expecting a more differentiated market in 2026?

Jeremy Richardson from the RBC Global Equity team looks into winners and losers in the world of AI.

Highlights

  • Is Alphabet’s Gemini model set to lead the AI market?
  • Open AI’s Sam Altman issues a code red encouraging all employees to refocus their activities.
  • Encouraging signs as investors look to more diverse market opportunities.

Jeremy Richardson

Hello. This is Jeremy Richardson from the RBC Global Equities team here with another update.

Big changes going on over the last few weeks in the world of AI, and in particular, the market's impression about who's going to win and who's going to lose. This has been a much more differentiated market compared to what we’ve seen back in the end of 2024 into the early part of 2025. But interestingly, the launch of Alphabet's Gemini model has really changed the market's impression of who the leaders are going to be.

Up until now, OpenAI's ChatGPT has been the one to beat, particularly in the world of coding and in text, but post the launch of Gemini, it seems as though that model from Alphabet is actually winning in terms of text and in terms of coding. Anthropic's Claude model is actually now slightly ahead. This has led to Sam Altman, the Chief Executive of OpenAI, issuing a code red, encouraging all employees to refocus back onto core activities as they respond to this strategic moment of uncertainty. Now, how the company responds from here and what the outcome of this increased focus is going to be and will be one of the big unknowns for the artificial intelligence part of the market over the course of the next few months.

If OpenAI proves to be successful, then that's probably going to be quite good for the $1.3 trillion worth of computing commitments that they have made. People will look at that and feel pretty reassured. If, however, they are unsuccessful, it probably will be quite good for some of their competitors who will be conferred as being in the leading positions but will raise broader questions about the level of spending going into the industry. I suppose some more areas of strategic uncertainty being not driven by public companies so much, but actually some of their private competitors, and what they choose to do next will be one of the more interesting things to keep an eye on over the course of the early months, I think, of 2026. Will Anthropic and OpenAI come to market? What will that do to AI sentiment? Will it help in the short term, or will it suck capital away from other companies who are already publicly traded?

The other area which I just wanted to touch on is what we're seeing in terms of market breadth. Now, with this more focused attention to the market on AI winners versus AI losers, we are still seeing quite concentrated market conditions, but it's creating space in the market for other businesses to begin to perform. It feels as though, as we've exited the end of 2025, it's no longer just a case of AI above everything else.

Now, we're actually beginning to see other parts of the market, particularly some more cyclical parts of the market, also begin to attract some more attention and favour from investors. Now, this is actually quite, we think, an encouraging development because the more stocks that outperform, in theory, the more alpha should be available to investors. So actually, we're leaning into this. We're quite optimistic, I think, about this shift in the market. And we'll be looking for signs of confirmation of this as we head into early part of 2026. I hope that's been of interest, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.
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