How the TIAA General Account is investing for 2026

Time to read: 5 minutes

CIO Emily Wiener is balancing AI opportunities against economic uncertainties

TIAA backs its guaranteed payments with the financial strength and investment prowess of its roughly $300 billion General Account, or GA.¹ The GA is specifically built to support the savings growth and lifetime income payments we make to retirement plan participants primarily through TIAA Traditional,² our flagship fixed annuity.

We caught up with Emilia (Emily) Wiener, the GA’s chief investment officer, early in 2026 to reflect on key trends and themes.

Emily -The U.S. economy has been supported by consumers and capital spending around artificial intelligence (AI), though there are questions about how much momentum remains.

The jobs market weakened in the second half of 2025, with unemployment rising, but consumer spending held strong. People talk about a “K-shaped” economy, or a widening divergence between the stronger and weaker segments within the economy. While we think that’s apt, the U.S. doesn’t appear to be slipping into recession.

Inflation appears contained, which allowed the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates three times last year. The Fed’s short-term policy interest rate now sits at its lowest level in three years, and there will likely be further easing if these conditions persist. Last year’s record-breaking six-week government shutdown affected some major U.S. data releases, including on inflation, and even though the economic picture might not be completely clear we expect the Fed will continue to ease throughout 2026, especially once [Fed Chairman Jerome] Powell’s term ends in May.

Emily - As a liability-driven investor, our focus is on maintaining asset liability management requirements, and on investing to create a stable, recurring stream of income to support our value returned to clients and participants, which helps grow retirement savings. More than 80%³ of our assets are fixed income instruments paying contractual interest rates, and we purchase them with the intent to hold to maturity.

For us, it’s notable that we’ve seen a steeper yield curve [higher yields on bonds with longer maturity dates] in recent months, a trend we expect to continue as the Fed’s rate cutting campaign progresses. This is positive for book yield-oriented investors, since we can replace maturing bonds with higher-yielding, longer-dated ones.

With a few exceptions, corporate borrowers are seeing top-line growth and stable-to-improving profit margins. Borrowers should continue to benefit from lower debt costs as the Fed cuts rates. Credit spreads [the difference between yields on corporate bonds and Treasuries] are near historically tight levels, and we are not expecting material shifts so long as credit fundamentals remain benign.

We have a global portfolio and have always focused on limiting the size of our individual exposures. We also believe diversification is an important lever for managing risk. With that in mind, we’re watching out for knock-on effects of geopolitical instability in Venezuela and elsewhere, tension related to unsustainable fiscal deficits, and tariff-driven inflationary pressures that could build, or dissipate. The White House is likely to announce a replacement for Fed Chair Powell soon, and questions about Fed independence may grow. But we run what-if scenarios all the time with respect to outlier market events, and right now we’re not making any material changes to our portfolio.

Emily - AI has the potential to be the defining technology of our time, improving productivity and becoming a fundamental tool in almost any industry. As long-term investors, we’re interested both in direct opportunities in the infrastructure that supports AI and indirect opportunities that may emerge as AI adoption starts to affect corporate top and bottom lines across industries.

The GA, through our wholly owned asset manager Nuveen, is looking at energy and energy infrastructure investments that will support electricity demands of AI data centers. Think about the huge amount of power it takes to run the AI ecosystem. Training a single large language model can consume as much electricity as nearly 100 U.S. households use in a year.⁵ Serving AI applications at scale will drive more, and more sustained, energy demand, which will reshape how power utilities need to plan and operate. Right now, there is almost no reserve capacity in the system and the transmission infrastructure is quite dated.

While there are valid concerns about the scale and rapid pace of AI infrastructure investment, our analyses indicate the GA’s portfolio is appropriately positioned relative to these risks. Our exposure is diversified across the value chain, emphasizes established companies with real revenue and validated business models, and in many cases would actually benefit from the "bubble-deflating" scenarios that concern some market observers. Our larger positions are in companies that either have conservative business models that are well-positioned independent of AI momentum, or would see profit margin improvements from reduced infrastructure costs.