Pictet Asset Management is preparing to launch five AI-enhanced active UCITS ETFs in Europe, marking the Swiss group’s first move into the region’s ETF market. The funds will be domiciled in Ireland and will cover US, world, emerging markets, Europe and world ex-US equities under the tickers PQUS, PQWD, PQEM, PQEU and PQWX, respectively. Pictet said the launches are intended to reflect changing investor preferences and will bring its AI-led equity capabilities into a European ETF wrapper for the first time.

As first reported by ETF Stream , the new range builds on Pictet’s earlier ETF push in the US. The firm only entered the ETF market in October 2025, when it launched its first three actively managed US-listed ETFs – the AI Enhanced International Equity ETF (PQNT), Cleaner Planet ETF (PCLN) and AI & Automation ETF (PBOT). It added a fourth fund, the AI Enhanced US Equity ETF, in February 2026. That makes Pictet a relative newcomer to ETFs despite its long history in asset management, and the use of Waystone for ETF expertise and capital markets support underlines that this is still an early-stage build-out rather than an established franchise.

Pictet’s broader institutional credentials are much longer standing. The group was founded in Geneva in 1805, with Pictet Asset Management having £251bn of assets under management as at 31 December 2025. This AI strategy is coming through its Quest franchise, which Pictet says is the result of more than three decades of quantitative development. The firm’s long-only Quest AI-Driven Global Equities strategy was launched in March 2024 after several years of research; Pictet is now packaging these capabilities in ETF form.

There is at least some evidence that the concept has gained traction in the US, albeit from a small base. The US-listed AI Enhanced US Equity ETF has gathered $72m in assets since launch, while the AI Enhanced International Equity ETF had attracted about $12m.

Our view

David Batchelor, senior analyst at QuotedData, said: “Pictet’s planned European ETF launch is notable less because it is embracing AI – which many managers now claim to be doing in one form or another – and more because it shows how quickly the active ETF wrapper is drawing in large, established houses that until recently had little or no ETF presence. Pictet brings a long institutional track record and a serious quantitative platform, but it is still very new to ETFs, so investors will need to decide how much value to place on the pedigree of the underlying strategy versus the firm’s limited experience in this format”.