What’s Next for ETFs: Innovation, Distribution, and the Investor Experience
Exchange-traded funds have moved from the margins of the asset management industry to its center. What began as a tool for tracking broad market indexes is now one of the most dynamic parts of the investing landscape, giving investors access to a broad range of strategies and asset classes.
That momentum is the backdrop for ICI’s ETF Conference, returning to Nashville June 8–10. This year’s conference will bring together the full ETF ecosystem to examine what comes next: how products are built, how they trade, how they reach investors, and how the regulatory framework can continue to support innovation while protecting investors.
A Defining Moment for ETF Structure
One of the most important topics on the agenda is ETF share class relief. After years of industry engagement, the SEC has cleared the path for funds to launch ETF share classes alongside mutual fund share classes. That development could have significant implications for investor choice, operational efficiency, and competition.
Conference sessions will explore what implementation looks like in practice. Fund sponsors are now considering how mutual fund and ETF share classes can coexist within the same portfolio, what operational and regulatory questions remain, and how this structure may shape product development in the years ahead.
This discussion builds on ICI’s sustained work to help members prepare for this change. From advocacy to operational guidance, ICI has worked closely with asset managers, intermediaries, service providers, and other market participants to help them prepare to bring new products to market.
Regulation in Real Time
As the ETF market continues to grow, the regulatory framework must keep pace with new products, technologies and methods for reaching investors.
That’s why regulation is a central theme of this year’s conference. Attendees will hear directly from legal and regulatory experts on the priorities shaping the ETF industry today, including how recent developments may affect product design, fund operations, disclosure, and investor protection.
The conference will also feature Brian Daly, Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management, in conversation with Paul Cellupica, ICI’s General Counsel. That discussion comes at an important moment, as policymakers and market participants consider how the ETF market can continue to evolve under a regulatory framework that supports responsible innovation and serves long-term investors.
Innovation Across the ETF Lifecycle
The ETF growth story is also becoming more complex. Active ETFs continue to gain ground, fixed income ETFs are attracting strong demand, and digital asset strategies are drawing attention. At the same time, new technologies are raising questions about how ETFs are constructed, traded, distributed, and governed.
Artificial intelligence will be one focus of the program, with sessions examining how AI can be applied across the ETF lifecycle, from investment research and basket construction to operations, risk management, and oversight. Tokenization will also be a major topic, as the industry evaluates whether new infrastructure could change how ETFs operate, settle, and reach investors.
Distribution and the Changing Investor
The growing popularity of ETFs and evolving technology has made distribution strategies critically important. Sponsors are navigating wirehouses, platforms, model portfolio providers, advisers, and digital tools—each with its own expectations, requirements, and measures of success.
At the same time, retail investors are changing how they engage with financial markets. More investors are using apps, platforms, and digital communities to learn about investments, compare strategies, and make decisions. Younger investors in particular are more comfortable engaging with financial information on their phones and discussing portfolio choices in digital settings.
That shift creates new opportunities for ETF issuers to reach investors more directly. It also raises the stakes for investor education, clear communication, and responsible product positioning.
A Forum for the Full ETF Ecosystem
The strength of ICI’s ETF Conference is its inclusiveness. It brings together sponsors, regulators, exchanges, liquidity providers, service providers, legal and compliance professionals, operations experts, and others whose work keeps the ETF ecosystem functioning.
That full-ecosystem approach will be reflected throughout the program, including Eric Pan’s conversation with VanEck CEO Jan van Eck, sessions on ETF share classes, capital markets, AI, tokenization, and more. The agenda also looks beyond the U.S. market, with several sessions examining how ETF adoption, product development, and distribution are evolving in global markets, including Canada and Europe.
Most important, the conference is about bringing people together. Expanded networking time, emerging leaders programming, and dedicated opportunities for peer discussion will help attendees build relationships across an industry that depends on collaboration.
As ETFs enter their next phase of growth, the questions facing the industry are becoming broader and more consequential: how to support innovation, how to preserve resilient markets, how to reach investors responsibly, and how to maintain the trust that has made ETFs so valuable. Those are the conversations coming to Nashville—and they are exactly the conversations ICI’s ETF Conference is designed to lead.