Jay Jacobs

Jacobs holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Emory University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and is a CFA charterholder.⁠[1]

Before joining BlackRock, Jacobs was a business analyst at the New York Stock Exchange, where he helped launch and support hundreds of ETFs on the NYSE Arca trading platform; he later led the research and strategy team at the ETF issuer Global X ETFs.⁠[1]

From April 2022, Jacobs led BlackRock’s U.S. thematic and active equity ETF division, spearheading the firm’s research and product development on investment megatrends. That same month he co-authored a 28-page white paper, “The Great Acceleration,” bringing together the iShares megatrends team, the systematic equities group, and the fundamental equities group to examine the growth opportunities created by the accelerating pace of change.⁠[2][2][2]

In June 2022, he said on the program Opto Sessions that the white paper identified three “drivers of progress”: the industrial renaissance, the power of the purse (millennials’ buying power and rising consumption in emerging markets), and post-Covid-19 changes in medicine. He described process automation as an opportunity that had “only really skimmed the surface,” but said that because AI can be applied to so many parts of the economy, it is difficult to forecast exactly how powerful it will be.⁠[2][2][2][2]

As BlackRock’s U.S. Head of Thematic and Active ETFs, Jacobs appeared on episode 192 of the firm’s podcast The Bid, discussing with host Oscar PulidoOscar PulidoOscar Pulido is a managing director and Global Head of Product Strategy for the Fundamental Equities business at the American asset manager BlackRock, and the host of BlackRock’s flagship investment podcast, The Bid.Open the full entry whether investors should treat AI and technology as one allocation or separate ones, and which segments of the AI ecosystem merit attention.⁠[3]

On CNBCCNBCCNBC is an American business and financial news cable channel launched by NBC in 1989; it merged with its rival FNN in 1991 and since January 2026 has been part of Versant Media Group, spun off from Comcast.Open the full entry’s “ETF Edge,” Jacobs said the AI adoption cycle was “still very early.” He argued that the rising value of data would drive cybersecurity spending, stressed the physical infrastructure behind the technology—power, data centers and real estate, chips, and copper—and said investing in the AI theme should not be limited to megacap tech stocks.⁠[4][4][4][4]

On episode 206 of The Bid, Jacobs discussed the theme of rebuilding the U.S. physical economy under policies such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, covering demographic trends affecting the housing market, the reshoring of manufacturing, and the bipartisan support for these developments.⁠[3][3]

Episode 233 of The Bid was an “Ask Me Anything” special in which Jacobs, as BlackRock’s U.S. Head of Equity ETFs, answered listener questions. He outlined the “be, beat, modify” equity framework—core ETFs for efficiency, active and thematic ETFs aiming to outperform, and outcome-oriented strategies for risk management—and stressed that advances in AI require massive investment in electricity, real estate, and supply chains.⁠[3][3][3]

On episode 249 of The Bid, Jacobs discussed why mega forces are harder to ignore, and harder to diversify away from, than in past market cycles, including the shift in AI investing from a growth narrative to a focus on usage intensity, national security considerations reshaping the definition of defense, and physical infrastructure emerging as a critical market constraint.⁠[3][3]

BlackRock’s podcast The Bid released episode 273, “AI Beyond Tech: How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping the Economy,” in which host Oscar Pulido and Jacobs discussed how the AI economy is evolving: AI is moving beyond technology companies into healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, and other parts of the economy, while demand for computing power is highlighting physical constraints in electricity, semiconductors, and critical materials.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

On the episode, Jacobs said the AI megaforce is now four years old since the release of ChatGPT, and that its impact now extends to power companies, materials needed for the AI build-out, consumer products, healthcare services, and financial services, making AI one of the broadest themes in the market today. Beyond tech companies, sectors traditionally slow to adopt new technology, such as healthcare companies and law firms, are at the forefront of AI adoption; “this is not just a tech theme anymore,” he said, but “a broad economic theme.”⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6]

Citing a survey, he said about 40% of companies investing heavily in AI have seen little or even negative impact, while the other 60% have seen clear gains, the key being a defined plan for using AI with appropriate resources; as an example he described a potato chip maker that installed dozens of cameras along its production line, built a digital twin, and used AI to optimize the process. The episode also covered data center power demand (he estimated data centers might need about 121 gigawatts of power by the end of the decade, with each gigawatt of capacity representing $40 billion to $50 billion of investment), material bottlenecks such as copper and indium, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, and digital assets supporting micropayments between AI agents.⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6][6][5][5][5]

As of October 2026, Jacobs is BlackRock’s U.S. Head of Equity ETFs, overseeing overall product strategy, client engagement, and thought leadership across the firm’s index and active equity, digital asset, and alternatives ETF business, and is frequently cited in media including CNBC, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in the New York area.⁠[1][1][1]

iShares: Official link: https://www.ishares.com/us/biographies/jay-jacobs (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

BlackRock: Official website: https://www.blackrock.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

The Bid: Official link: https://rss.art19.com/the-bid (opens in a new window)⁠[5]