In 2025, the world’s biggest companies are worth more for what cannot be seen than what can. According to a new report from Brand Finance, intangible assets, brands, patents, data, software, and other intellectual property, have reached a record value of $97.6 trillion, a 23% increase on last year and the highest since the consultancy began tracking them in 1996.
The finding underscores how value in modern capitalism is now largely ethereal. The machinery, buildings and inventories that once anchored corporate worth have given way to intellectual property, customer relationships and algorithms. Yet, despite their growing importance, most of these assets remain off the books: Brand Finance estimates that 83% of global intangible value is unreported in company financial statements.
The consultancy’s Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) report, which examines 72,500 listed firms across 150 jurisdictions, divides intangible assets into three broad categories: rights (such as leases and contracts), relationships (including a trained workforce and customer ties), and intellectual property (brands, copyrights and patents). Their collective rise, it says, reflects “the accelerating role of innovation” as companies compete through design, software and reputation rather than sheer scale.
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America’s invisible empire
This year’s analysis reveals that the United States has overtaken Denmark to become the world’s most intangible market for the first time since 2021. Intangibles now make up 78% of the total market value of U.S. companies, up sharply thanks to the tech sector’s dominance. Eight of the world’s ten most intangible firms are American, led by NVIDIA NASDAQ:NVDA, whose intangible value jumped 50% to $4.3 trillion, displacing Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, which rank second through fifth.
Denmark’s fall from grace, by contrast, has been swift. Its intangibility ratio fell from 82% in 2024 to 67% in 2025, largely because of the woes of Novo Nordisk [CPH:NOVO], the pharmaceutical giant whose value contracted by two-thirds. Leadership changes, a slower product pipeline, and growing policy pressure on drug pricing combined to erode confidence in what was once Europe’s most admired growth story.
Novo Nordisk’s predicament, notes Brand Finance, is a case study in the fragility of intangible wealth. Its success was built not only on patents but also on the power of Ozempic, its blockbuster weight-loss brand. As competitors moved faster and new entrants seized market share, the company’s perceived brand “moat” proved narrower than expected. The decline illustrates how the very intangibility that powers corporate growth can make it vulnerable to sudden reappraisal when investor sentiment shifts.
The volatility of the unseen
Intangible value is not evenly spread. While technology firms continue to soar, pharmaceuticals and oil & gas have struggled. The report shows the pharma sector’s total intangible value fell 8% to $6.5 trillion, with six of the top ten companies recording declines. Novo Nordisk’s fall was mirrored by Eli Lilly NYSE:LLY, which saw a 20% drop. Policy pressures, including drug price curbs from the Trump administration, have weakened growth forecasts and squeezed margins across the sector.
Annie Brown, a valuation director at Brand Finance, argues that 2025’s record highs mask underlying volatility: “Record global intangible asset value underscores the accelerating role of innovation,” she says. “But notable drops in sectors like pharma and energy show how exposed firms can be when the bulk of their worth lies in assets that aren’t tangible, or even disclosed.”
The paradox of the modern economy, then, is that value has never been higher, nor more elusive. As capital markets chase digital dominance, the foundations of corporate wealth are shifting into realms that balance sheets still struggle to capture. The world’s largest companies may now own nearly $100 trillion in ideas, but measuring — and protecting — them remains an uncertain science.
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