2026 Outlook
The Future of Market Data Management: What 2026 Will Demand of Asset Managers
January 06, 2025 | Sidelight
For years, market data lived quietly in the background of asset management operations — expensive, complex, and largely unquestioned.
As firms look ahead to 2026, market data is moving from an operational necessity to a strategic, board-visible concern. Costs continue to rise. Contracts are becoming more restrictive. Usage is harder to track. Audits are more frequent. And market data teams are being asked to support more stakeholders than ever and regulation and DORA hang like a spectre over firms — without additional headcount.
The result is a growing strain on legacy operating models.
As Charles Ashwanden, CEO of Sidelight, puts it:
"In 2026, the firms that will see the greatest benefits in this demanding market will be those who holistically integrate Market data process’ with other strategically critical developments including AI. The differentiated firms won’t just be looking to manage market data more carefully but to manage it differently."
Below are the defining trends reshaping market data management — and what asset managers must do to stay ahead.
Market Data Is Becoming a Board-Level Conversation
Market data spend has quietly become one of the largest non-compensation expenses at many asset management firms. In 2026, that reality is no longer overlooked. CFOs, COOs, and boards are asking sharper, more direct questions:
- Why is market data spend growing faster than headcount?
- What are we actually using versus paying for?
- Where are we exposed if usage patterns change or contract terms tighten?
Market data teams are increasingly expected to defend spend with the same rigor applied to technology investments, vendor relationships, and staffing decisions.
The challenge is that most teams still lack real-time visibility. Even those teams with existing vendor management systems rely heavily on Spreadsheets. Static vendor reports don’t show how contracts, entitlements, and actual usage align — making accountability difficult and optimization reactive.
In 2026, transparency isn’t a differentiator. It’s table stakes.
Contract Complexity Is Increasing — and So Is Risk
Market data contracts are no longer straightforward agreements. They’ve evolved into dense legal documents layered with:
- Product-specific usage definitions
- Embedded compliance obligations
- Restrictive redistribution clauses
- Ambiguous language that shifts risk onto the customer
As contracts grow longer and more nuanced risk grows alongside them.
Relying on manual contract reviews or institutional memory creates blind spots that often surface too late — during audits, renewals, or disputes. Legal teams become bottlenecks. Market data teams become translators. And risk accumulates quietly in the background.
Firms that continue treating contracts as static PDFs will struggle to keep pace. In 2026, contracts must be searchable, interpretable, and operationalized — not buried in shared drives.
Usage-Based Pricing Will Reshape Spend Forecasting
Vendors are rapidly moving toward usage-based and hybrid pricing models. While these structures promise flexibility, they introduce a new challenge: unpredictability.
Without clear visibility into who or how data is consumed across teams, usage-based pricing can:
- Create budget volatility
- Increase audit exposure
- Penalize firms for over-provisioning or weak governance
- Create audit trail nightmares
The traditional approach — tracking entitlements separately from usage — no longer works. When consumption shifts, costs follow, often without warning.
In 2026, firms will need to connect usage directly to contractual rights in order to forecast spend accurately, manage risk, and avoid surprises.
Market Data Teams Are Supporting More — With Less
Market data is no longer confined to portfolio managers and traders.
Today, it supports:
- Investment teams
- Risk and compliance
- Research and analytics
- Technology and data platforms
- Client reporting and transparency
Each additional stakeholder adds complexity — more access requests, more entitlements, more risk.
At the same time, market data teams remain lean. Headcounts aren’t growing in proportion to complexity. The expectation is clear: do more, move faster, reduce risk — without adding people.
Manual workflows and fragmented systems simply don’t scale under these conditions.
Audits Are No Longer an Edge Case
Vendor audits are becoming more frequent, more detailed, and more costly when issues arise.
Too often, firms respond reactively — scrambling to reconcile contracts and usage, pulling data from multiple systems, and relying on assumptions instead of evidence.
This reactive posture increases financial risk and strains vendor relationships.
In 2026, audit readiness must be continuous, not a fire drill. Firms need confidence that — at any moment — usage aligns with contractual rights.
Manual Processes Have Reached Their Limit
Despite rising complexity, most market data teams still heavily rely on:
- Spreadsheets
- Email-based approvals
- Shared drives
- Tribal knowledge
This approach doesn’t just slow teams down — it introduces material operational risk. Knowledge leaves when people leave. Errors compound quietly. Governance becomes inconsistent.
As complexity grows, the cost of manual processes becomes unsustainable.
The next generation of market data management will be automated by default, not optimized at the margins.
AI Will Become a Requirement, Not a Differentiator
By 2027, AI will no longer be a “nice to have” in market data operations.
Leading firms will use AI to:
- Interpret and operationalize contracts
- Identify usage anomalies
- Surface cost-saving opportunities
- Reduce reliance on institutional memory
Static tools can’t keep up with dynamic environments. Firms that continue to rely on manual review and disconnected systems will fall behind — not because they lack expertise, but because their tools aren’t built for the job.
A New Operating Model for Market Data
Taken together, these trends point to a clear conclusion: market data management needs a new operating model.
One built on:
- Centralized visibility
- Continuous intelligence
- Proactive governance
- Automation at scale
This is the future Sidelight was built for.
By unifying contracts, entitlements, and usage in a single AI-powered platform, Sidelight helps asset managers:
- Reduce unnecessary spend
- Lower compliance and audit risk
- Scale operations without adding headcount
- Make confident, defensible decisions
The question heading into 2026 isn’t whether market data complexity will increase.
It’s how prepared your organization is to manage it.
Why Leading Firms Are Turning to Sidelight
The challenges market data teams face aren’t driven by a lack of expertise — they’re driven by outdated tools.
Sidelight was built specifically for modern market data operations. Not as another reporting layer, but as an AI-first operating platform designed to bring clarity, control, and confidence to one of the most complex areas of the firm.
With Sidelight, asset managers can:
- Turn dense, restrictive contracts into searchable, actionable intelligence
- Align entitlements, usage, and spend in a single source of truth
- Reduce audit and compliance risk through continuous visibility
- Identify savings opportunities without disrupting the business
- Scale market data operations without adding headcount
Most importantly, Sidelight replaces reactive fire drills with proactive governance — allowing market data teams to lead with insight instead of chasing issues after the fact.
Prepare for 2026 — Before Complexity Compounds
Market data complexity isn’t slowing down. Contracts will continue to tighten. Usage models will become harder to predict. Scrutiny will increase.
The firms that get ahead of these trends will be the ones that invest now in systems that make visibility, control, and intelligence possible for now and the future.
If you’re rethinking how your firm manages market data heading into 2026, now is the time to act.
See how Sidelight works.
Request a demo or explore our Contracts AI walkthrough to learn how leading asset managers are gaining control over market data spend, risk, and governance.
Wishing you a successful 2026!