this Art Basel and UBS’s 2025 Global Collection Survey It reads like a snapshot of the art world at a critical moment—between generations, values, and the physical and digital realms that define today’s culture. The report, which surveyed 3,100 high-net-worth collectors in 10 markets, provides quantitative proof of what the art world has been feeling for years: that the future of collecting no longer belongs to a small group of baby boomer patrons. Instead, as this year’s report shows, it’s increasingly influenced by women and the first generation who grew up online.
A new class of collectors
Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents are Generation Z or Millennials, a demographic shift that is redefining how taste, access, and value are negotiated in real time. These young collectors are more global, more digital, and more willing to break down the boundaries between art, design, fashion, and technology. For them, collecting is not just ownership, but participation.
The numbers prove it. Gen Z collectors now allocate an average of 26% of their wealth to art, the highest proportion of any age group. Their portfolio is not limited to paintings, but also includes digital works, limited edition designs, and even sneakers and sports assets. The report’s foreword notes that art “increasingly coexists with design, luxury and lifestyle collectibles,” blurring old hierarchies between aesthetic judgment and personal branding.
feminization of the market
Meanwhile, the most profound wealth story of the decade—the great wealth transfer—is underway. UBS estimates that more than $83 trillion will be transferred between generations over the next few decades, with women expected to account for a large share. By the end of 2024, women already control more than one-third of global wealth, and this proportion is expected to rise significantly in the future.
You can see this growing power in their collection model. In 2024 and the first half of 2025, female collectors spent 46% more than men, narrowing the historical gap in activity and influence.
The content of their collections reflects this growing equality: works by female collectors now account for 49% of collections by female collectors, compared with 40% by male collectors.
The symbolic and material consequences are huge. Institutional equality has been a philanthropic goal for decades. Now, gender balance is being driven by market forces. Not only do women buy differently, but they also establish different norms.
Digital art goes mainstream (again)
One of the report’s most striking findings is how quickly digital art has (re)entered the mainstream. 51% of high-net-worth collectors purchased digital art in 2024-25, almost tying it with sculpture for the third-most valuable medium. (67% of participants said they purchased a painting and 56% purchased a sculpture.)
Digital purchases are no longer a novelty in the tacky cryptocurrency bubble of 2021. Rather, they represent growing comfort with the way art is made, bought, traded, and displayed. The report describes a “growing comfort with fluid, hybrid communication models” that now extends from online viewing rooms to direct messages between artists and buyers.
The rise of direct relationships
This fluidity is reflected in the way artworks change hands. In 2024-25, 63% of collectors will buy art directly from artists, up from 27% two years ago and 43% in 2022.
Nearly half of high-net-worth buyers use social media to make purchases: 43% buy from a studio, 37% commission a creation, and 35% buy via an Instagram link.
The old hierarchy—dealers first, artists second—is fading. Of course, galleries remain the most trusted channel overall, but the survey found that collectors’ second most preferred route is now buying direct, with this category more than doubling in just one year.
Rethink risk
Conventional wisdom holds that women are more risk-averse investors. In the realm of art, this has proven to be profoundly untrue. The survey showed that 55% of women regularly purchase works by unknown artists, compared with 44% of men, although both groups view such purchases as high risk. In other words, they recognize the risk and do it anyway.
These data suggest a cultural confidence—one that values discovery both as social capital and as an artistic responsibility. The market’s interest in “emerging” collectors may have cooled, but for female collectors, risk is a form of authorship.
From crazy to stable
After years of bubbles, 2025 looks eerily calm. Since 2024, collectors’ sales intentions have fallen by more than half, from 55% to 25%, while 84% remain optimistic about the direction of the market and only 4% are pessimistic.
This optimism is rooted in a shift from speculation to stewardship: more collectors plan to donate works to museums or pass them on to family members rather than sell them.
collection as identity
Subtle but dramatic changes in motivations appear throughout the report. Collecting is no longer about possession, but about the projection of values, belonging, and personal narratives. as Art Basel The preface notes that today’s collectors pursue “broad definitions of connoisseurship, with art increasingly coexisting alongside design, luxury and lifestyle collectibles” that reflect “personal pleasure and expressions of identity shaped by social relationships as well as economic motivations.”
This statement may be the truest measure of the state of the art world in 2025: Wealths are shifting, tastes are diversifying, and collecting—once a realm of legacy—is now an act of self-definition, or, if you’re more cynical, of branding.
