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Morningstar has launched the Morningstar PitchBook GenAI 20 Index, the first perpetual benchmark dedicated to tracking pure-play generative AI companies across their full lifecycle—from private development through public listing—providing consistent exposure to the core innovators driving GenAI advancement.
Generative AI continues to reshape industries by transforming workflows, products, and decision-making at scale. However, many of the companies at the forefront of foundational model development and application remain private, creating blind spots in conventional market indices. The Morningstar PitchBook GenAI 20 Index fills this void with a rules-based, lifecycle-agnostic approach that ensures investors can maintain targeted exposure to GenAI’s core drivers regardless of corporate maturity or listing status.
Unlike traditional indices that reset or exclude private entities, this perpetual structure preserves continuity across funding rounds, acquisitions, and eventual IPOs or listings. This design enables long-term performance analysis, thematic comparison, and accurate attribution of GenAI’s economic impact as the sector matures.
The index draws on PitchBook’s comprehensive private markets dataset and rigorous classification framework to select companies whose primary business centers on advancing core GenAI capabilities. This focus on “pure-play” innovators ensures the benchmark captures entities most directly responsible for technological breakthroughs rather than downstream adopters or diversified tech firms.
“Staying at the forefront of innovation in generative AI requires a clear view of opportunities across both public and private markets. As private markets play an increasingly critical role in technology development, having transparent and measurable benchmarks is essential. We believe this new index helps provide clarity to one of the most important growth themes of the next decade,” said Sanjay Arya, Head of Innovation, Morningstar Indexes.
“GenAI represents a fundamental shift in how software is built, deployed, and scaled across the global economy. Unlike prior waves of innovation, its horizontal nature allows core generative models to influence nearly every sector simultaneously, reshaping workflows, products, and decision-making at unprecedented speed. As this transformation accelerates, the companies advancing foundational GenAI capabilities are increasingly central to how value is created in the technology ecosystem. Understanding how this layer evolves, consolidates, and scales is essential to interpreting the next phase of technological change,” said Dimitri Zabelin, Senior Investment Research Analyst, AI & Cybersecurity, PitchBook.
The index complements Morningstar’s broader ecosystem of private markets tools, including enhanced coverage from Morningstar Manager Research, standardized categories in Morningstar Direct, and PitchBook’s reference data and analytics suite. Together, these resources empower investors to navigate the full spectrum of GenAI opportunities with greater transparency and precision.
About Morningstar Indexes
As the fastest-growing global index provider for the last five years according to Burton-Taylor International Consulting, Morningstar Indexes was built to keep up with the evolving needs of investors—and to be a leading-edge advocate for them. Morningstar's rich heritage as a transparent, investor-focused leader in data and research uniquely equips Morningstar Indexes to support individuals, institutions, wealth managers and advisors in navigating investment opportunities across all major asset classes, styles, and strategies.
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