18 Feb 2026

Who uses expert networks?

Max FribergCEO at Inex One
Business Market Sizing

TL;DR

  • Around 11,200 companies use Expert Networks in 2026 - adoption has expanded far beyond Wall Street and into Main Street corporate decision-making.

  • Corporates are the largest client segment by number of firms using Expert Networks (~47%), yet represent just ~12% of total industry spend.

  • Consulting firms are the real heavy hitters, with the inverse usage profile of Corporates - they make up just ~9% of clients, but drive ~46% of spend.

  • Investment and Capital market firms are significant both in adoption (~44% by number) and proportional budget (~42% of spend).

  • A proliferation of specialized Expert Networks have created administrative headaches for clients, driving the rise of centralized platforms like Inex One.

To understand who uses Expert Networks in 2026, we should look beyond the world of high-finance. Today, expert insights matter to all ambitious business decisions, fueling industries such as private equity, hedge funds, and consulting and mainstream corporate strategy teams alike. Anyone can use an LLM or a quick search to scan petabytes of information in seconds. This means most businesses can make better-informed decisions than they could otherwise. But that’s all table stakes. How can you get smarter than your competitors? 

The most critical information they are after isn’t online; it’s in the minds of experts with decades of practical experience. Expert Networks are the most efficient tool to get hold of those experts - by finding and screening them, and arranging phone calls.

The value proposition of Expert Networks is clear: fast, high-signal insights. But who uses them, really? And how much are they willing to pay for this niche expertise?

The heavy users: Sector-by-sector client breakdown

Expert Networks were once the secret tool of Wall Street hedge funds to get an information edge when investing in public markets. While that’s where things started, Expert Networks have since grown far beyond high finance.

We estimate that in 2026, about 11,200 companies across all industries use expert network services. The broad range of clients across sectors shows that getting expert insight isn’t just for insiders anymore. It has become a central toolkit for market research across almost every industry.

Here’s a closer look at the key sectors that engage Expert Networks the most:

Strategy Consultants: ~1,020 firms

High-urgency, high-volume consumers.

Typical use cases include:

  • Running a Commercial Due Diligence to assess the competitive landscape and value creation opportunities in an investment target.

  • Market Analysis to inform a client's expansion strategy into new segments, service lines or geographies.

Financial/ Capital Markets: ~4,895 firms 

High-stakes, deep-dive usage. Consists of Private Equity (~2,895), Hedge Funds (~1,405), and Asset Management & Banks (~595).

Typical use cases include:

  • Analyzing the competitive landscape and operational risks of a target company.

  • Getting a real-time assessment on an impending policy change that could move a stock.

Corporate Strategists: ~5,285 firms

A wide variety of use cases, mainly centered around corporate strategy/M&A work or customer/user/product research.

Typical use cases include:

  • Informing a market entry strategy into a new vertical or geography.

  • Customer segmentation and ICP research, mapping buyer personas and their buying journeys.

Tracking the capital spend

These customer segments behave very differently: ranging from very sporadic to daily usage of expert interviews.

In a separate piece of research, we sized the expert network total market to USD 3Bn. Accounting for the segment-level differences, we estimate segment spend as pictured:

There’s a huge difference between different client segments, where consulting firms stand out as voracious users, and corporates as more selective.

While consulting and finance remain the main expert network users, the service has spread far beyond them too. Corporate strategy teams across all industries (e.g. pharma, industrials, TMT), product/user research teams and market researchers have adopted expert network services en masse. This happens through sheer growing awareness of the service, or organically as consultants “move on to the real world”, bringing their favorite tools along. Expert Networks are becoming a staple research tool for any business facing high-stakes decisions, spreading from Wall Street to Main Street.

How to use Expert Networks

The growth of Expert Networks has solved the access problem - you can get expert answers to your most niche business questions. But when there are 100+ Expert Networks - which one do you choose? 

And when you use multiple networks - how do you deal with the additional admin work: email chains, scheduling calls, reconciling invoices etc?

The most important research tool is also the most admin-heavy.

Expert Networks, simplified

We built Inex One to get the best of two worlds: engage the best Expert Networks, with minimal admin work. 

With Inex One, you access more than 25 specialized Expert Networks in a single, efficient dashboard. 

Access Inex One here, or read how clients in Consulting, Private Equity, Corporate Strategy, Product research, and Asset Management use Inex One.