As part of this year’s Insight Jam LIVE event, the Solutions Review editors have compiled a list of predictions for 2026 from some of the most experienced professionals across the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Process Management (BPM), and broader WorkTech and Martech marketplaces.

As part of Solutions Review’s annual Insight Jam LIVE event, we called for the industry’s best and brightest to share their ERP, BPM, CRM, and Marketing Automation predictions for 2026 and beyond. The experts featured represent some of the top WorkTech solution providers, consultants, and thought-leaders with experience in these marketplaces. Each projection has been vetted for relevance and its ability to add business value.

WorkTech Predictions for 2026 and Beyond

Sammy Ahmed, VP and General Manager at name.com

Meet builders where they are – descriptive domains will drive the next wave of developer adoption.

“In 2026, developers won’t need to leave their coding environments to bring ideas online. As domain registration becomes frictionless, integrated directly into platforms like Vercel or Netlify, the process of launching a project will collapse into a single action: build, click publish, go live.

“More creative TLDs such as .fyi and .live are already fueling this shift. These domains make it easy for builders to prototype, share, and validate ideas without overthinking cost or complexity. For developers, a domain is no longer just an address; it’s the publish button. The registrars that embed themselves directly into the creative workflow will define the next era of developer-driven domain adoption.”

Michael Allen, CTO at Laserfiche

AI will transform product development and IT strategy by automating code creation.

“In 2026, AI agents will be capable of writing most application code for greenfield enterprise projects, reducing the need for manual programming but shifting pressure toward software testing and product management teams. This evolution will dramatically reduce the demand for software test engineers, but even more dramatically shrink the market for software test engineers. However, experienced software developers will remain vital in 2026, as their expertise will be needed to optimize, guide, and refine AI-generated code out of sophisticated agents.

“Enterprises will rely on built-in AI tools for retrieval-augmented generation rather than custom systems: Custom retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems will be too difficult for most organizations to deploy independently. Instead, most enterprises will keep their content in enterprise applications that incorporate RAG technology to enhance search and knowledge discovery. These built-in tools will enable semantic search and content understanding without the need for expensive or specialized internal development, helping organizations modernize their data access strategies differently.”

Changing talent dynamics will redefine hiring priorities.

“Visual language models (VLMs) will transform document processing and intelligent document platforms (IDPs), vastly expanding automation capabilities. However, the main barrier to their widespread adoption will be limited access to graphics processing units (GPUs), as VLMs require exponentially more compute power than existing algorithms that they’ll displace. In the 2026 talent landscape, the ability to learn new skills will quickly become the most critical skill, and CTOs should look for employees with this aptitude when making hiring decisions. While top AI researchers will continue to command multimillion-dollar offers from tech giants, most companies will succeed through tried-and-true good management and hiring practices, as well as cross-functional collaboration and pragmatic AI adoption.”

Assaf Baciu, President and Co-founder of Persado

“In 2026, AI will evolve from driving operational efficiency and growth on the supply side to reshaping demand itself. As AI agents go mainstream, they’ll act on behalf of consumers by continuously scanning for better offers, optimizing balances across institutions, and directing transactions to the most advantageous products in real-time. This shift will massively redefine business models, transforming not only what organizations sell, but how products are discovered, accessed, and experienced.

“Marketing will be the first discipline to adapt. Content will need to engage both humans and intelligent agents, built on faster, data-driven creative cycles that deliver precision at scale. In turn, to retain a competitive edge, marketing and compliance teams must operate as a unified system — using AI to anticipate risk, reshape performance, accelerate approvals, and speed ideas to market.”

Miguel Baltazar, VP of Developer Relations at OutSystems

No-code development as we know it today will be gone.

“As AI continues to elevate development by suggesting architectures, optimizing integrations, and automating repetitive tasks, no-code as we know it may not be necessary. In fact, no-code platforms based on visual development and drag-and-drop interfaces are already on the decline. Some no-code vendors have already abandoned those aspects and are offering platforms that create applications from a simple functional description without using code layers. But what about low-code platforms? They’ll evolve in 2026, building orchestration, interfaces between humans and agents, and the RAG needed for agents to have an accurate and current context to operate.

More than 75 percent of developers will be architecting, governing, and orchestrating instead of building applications.

“The developer role is going to be entirely different by the end of 2026. Many will transition into cognitive architects who orchestrate agents, a new role that will increase in value over the next 12 months. They’ll break down complex business problems and design blueprints of thought, which detail how ‘AI thinking’ should work. Others will become orchestrators, strategists, and collaborators. Their value will hinge on their abilities to solve, design, and inspire. Low-code developers, in particular, are well-positioned for this evolution. Already operating at the intersection of technology and business, they can translate intent into workflows and logic without getting lost in the complexities of code. That proximity to business context and problem-solving gives them a natural advantage as AI systems evolve toward orchestration, composition, and reasoning. They will also be expected to focus on governance, from designing how multiple agents interact and integrate responsibly to ensuring their integrity, adherence to the highest ethical standards, and accuracy.”

Nate Barad, Vice President of Product Marketing at Algolia

“From a B2B perspective, agent-to-agent interactions will redefine the customer experience in 2026. In this framework, AI agents work behind the scenes to coordinate, buy, or complete a service without human initiation. Gone are the days when a customer would have to repeat a question each time they logged in or an agent restarted a conversation.

“The shift from interaction to outcome is already underway. This is the next evolution of business workflows: agents will understand and execute complex tasks autonomously, such as technical configurations or optimizing inventory for channel distribution. Organizations that adopt an agent-to-agent model will effectively enhance processes, ultimately improving the customer experience.

“Customer service also improves through direct engagement with the customer, such as a support agent for field use to get help. The customer service representative becomes even more helpful through the use of agents, as answers and advice are retrieved with greater relevance and solution-specific guidance. Organizations that excel with the right genAI framework will create frictionless relationships with their customers. The brand experience will feel present and understanding without asking too much of the customer.”

Mahe Bayireddi, CEO & Co-founder at Phenom

Companies Will Re-Hire for Jobs Eliminated Due to AI.

“Despite the tremendous advancements in AI, we’re nowhere close to removing humans in business. Next year, companies who rushed to make layoffs hoping AI would fill a significant gap will realize they need to re-hire to fill some of those roles. We saw this starting this year with companies like Klarna, re-hiring to fill customer service roles that chatbots failed at. Next year, we’ll see more of this.”

AI Agents Will Swarm

“For the most part, AI agents today are generalized. Next year, we’ll see significant advancements where they’ll become domain-specific within practical use cases and tasks. This hyper-specialization will allow them to band together and ‘swarm’ over a problem. For example, an agent handling interview scheduling can work with another agent handling screening, communicating automatically with each other to perform these critical steps in the recruiting process for HR teams.”

AI Training will Move from “Nice to Have” to Essential.

“Organizations that fail to properly train and upskill their workforce on the changes AI is making internally will not survive. Next year, leaders who want to stay relevant will fund and advocate essential AI training and upskilling.”

Retention is Back.

“Companies will realize that the current job market will not exist forever and invest in employee development and retention efforts to prevent top talent who may currently be “job hugging” from finding a new opportunity as soon as the job market opens back up.”

Sarita Benjamin, General Manager of Supply Chain at Accuris

In 2026, supply chain leaders will finally stop treating compliance and engineering requirements as an afterthought.

The companies that win will be the ones that integrate engineering, sourcing, and compliance intelligence into the front end of every decision, long before materials are sourced or products are built. Further, one of the biggest shifts we’ll see next year is a move from reacting to disruptions to predicting them. Manual processes and fragmented tools simply can’t keep up with the pace of risk. Companies are consolidating onto platforms that provide real-time visibility, scenario modeling, and part-level intelligence so they can make decisions with confidence, not guesswork.”

AI isn’t the story anymore; it’s table stakes.

“The real differentiator in 2026 is data quality and domain-specific intelligence – the ability to know exactly which components, suppliers, and geographies expose you to risk before a disruption hits.”

Luis Blando, Chief Product and Technology Officer at OutSystems

An AI reality check is coming in 2026.

Gonçalo Borrêga, VP of Product Management for AI and AppDev at OutSystems

Hybrid agentic systems will carve out a big space in enterprise application development and agentic systems.

“The next phase of AI will lean heavily on smarter orchestration and efficiency. A big bet for 2026 is that companies seeking higher margins while witnessing diminishing improvements in frontier models will increasingly favor hybrid agentic systems that blend large language models (LLMs) with small language models (SLMs). Most organizations are unlikely to invest heavily in training or fine-tuning new models, as the integration of SLMs into these ecosystems will become their strongest asset. Sufficiently powerful, inherently more suitable, and necessarily more economical for many agentic systems, SLMs are the evident future of effective agentic AI. In the years ahead, the hybrid orchestration of LLMs and SLMs is likely to define the practical architecture of intelligent enterprises.”

The rise of hybrid agentic systems makes orchestration the new battleground for ROI.

“As enterprises embrace both large and small models (LLMs and SLMs), the 2026 reality will be about ‘intelligent composition.’ This marks the rise of hybrid agentic systems, where AI models work like a specialized team. Think of them as ‘Lego bricks’: a powerful LLM acts as the master-builder for complex reasoning, while dozens of specialized SLMs are the efficient, single-purpose bricks for specific tasks. This hybrid approach creates a new technical challenge: orchestration. Orchestration is the critical process of managing this fleet—routing the right task to the right model, coordinating the complex workflow, and ensuring all the different ‘bricks’ achieve a business goal—in a reliable, cost-effective, secured, and governed manner.”

Joel Burleson-Davis, Chief Technology Officer at Imprivata

The End of One-Size-Fits-All: 2026 Marks a New Era for Industrial Technology

“In 2026, industries like manufacturing and critical infrastructure will shift from layering on generic digital tools to enhancing purpose-built systems that reflect their unique operational realities. After years of adapting one-size-fits-all platforms and ‘horizontal’ solutions that fail to capture the nuances of complex industrial workflows, organizations are realizing that these mismatched tools are hindering innovation and efficiency.

“The new generation of digital-native professionals is moving away from one-size-fits-all architectures toward systems built with–and for–the people doing the work. This involves replacing tools that were never designed with a deep understanding of the industry and rebuilding technology stacks to meet the technical, safety, and interoperability needs of critical environments. In 2026, the cost of maintaining ill-fitting systems will finally outweigh modernization hesitancy–driving a decisive shift toward resilient, intuitive, and industry-informed foundations.”

AI will function more like part of the workforce rather than a tool.

“In 2026, organizations will leverage AI differently from any other tool. To successfully leverage AI, organizations will treat the tech the same way they treat new employees: with structured onboarding, ongoing supervision, and defined accountability. This shift will require human oversight at every stage of the AI lifecycle, from training data integrity to post-deployment monitoring.

“Equally important is the question of responsibility. When AI systems make mistakes, organizations must be able to answer who is accountable. The organizations that succeed in 2026 won’t necessarily be those with the most advanced models, but those that know what their AI is doing, why it’s doing it, and who’s responsible when it goes wrong.”

Mike Burton, Co-Founder & EVP of Strategic Partnerships at Bombora

Mid-Funnel Momentum is the Future of B2B Marketing

“As B2B marketing evolves, we’re seeing a decisive shift away from transactional, lower-funnel tactics and toward a more strategic focus on mid-funnel engagement. Traditional lead generation methods—such as cold outreach and gated content—are losing effectiveness in a world where buyers are self-educating long before they ever fill out a form.

“In 2026 and beyond, the most forward-thinking B2B marketers will prioritize brand-led engagement that aligns with real-time research behavior. Channels like programmatic CTV, native advertising, and contextual targeting—especially when powered by B2B intent data—are proving far more effective at influencing decision-makers across the buying committee.”

Phil Christianson, Chief Product Officer at Xurrent

Why Most AI Investments in Service Management Will Underperform.

“A lot of IT organizations are going to be disappointed with their AI investments in 2026. Why? Because they skipped the foundational work. You can’t use AI to clean up a messy knowledge base or fix poorly documented processes. When IT leaders don’t know where their help desk is actually struggling, they can’t justify the ROI when stakeholders ask what the AI delivered. Identifying specific bottlenecks before buying AI tools makes the difference between a successful implementation and an expensive experiment that goes nowhere.”

Infrastructure Monitoring Will Gain Ground As a Strategic IT Priority.

“Over the next couple of years, most IT organizations will acknowledge that the traditional service desk isn’t enough for modern infrastructure. Every company now has systems in the cloud, CRMs, data centers, or complex integrations that require a completely different kind of support than the everyday devices that employees depend on. Handling this complexity is how IT strengthens its role as a strategic business partner, not a cost center. An IT function focused primarily on help desk operations won’t have credibility when leadership needs to make critical infrastructure decisions.”

Andy Collins, Sales Executive at Columbus

AI won’t replace scientists—it will redefine what science means for Pharma.

“In 2026, the most transformative AI breakthroughs in life sciences won’t be about automating lab work; they’ll be about accelerating discovery itself. AI will increasingly serve as a collaborator, not a tool; Helping scientists model disease mechanisms, design molecules, and simulate trials in days instead of months. The boundary between research and insight will blur, and the organizations that empower human experts to interpret, refine, and build upon AI-generated discoveries will move fastest. The future of life sciences won’t belong to the labs with the most automation, but to the ones that know how to think with machines.”

David Colwell, VP of AI & ML at Tricentis

The Rise of Agentic AI Will Make Oversight Mandatory

“Agentic AI hinges on the ability to plan and act autonomously, which can easily be mistaken for deserving free range. In 2026, enterprises cannot allow themselves to make that mistake. To leverage agentic AI safely, teams must guide, constrain when necessary, and verify agents just as they would any fast-moving, high-impact system. Competitive edge will go to businesses that treat agentic AI with discipline, ensuring its autonomy never outpaces its reliability.”

Eric Connors, Chief Product Officer at iCIMS

“In 2026, AI will move from operating at the edges of work into the core of how organizations structure their workforce. As AI and agentic systems mature and evolve, business leaders will be forced to rethink how workforces are built, determine how to retool teams to work with this technology, and identify which skills must remain uniquely human and where current capability gaps exist.

“This reset will happen as company leaders continue to face macro pressures, including interest rate swings, an unstable economy, tariff uncertainty, and a labor market that feels more unpredictable by the month. That combination will make every hiring and workforce decision more complex, and it will push leaders to be far more intentional in how they align AI capability with their employees’ skillset and strengths.

“The organizations that will outperform their competitors will not be the ones chasing every shiny new AI capability. They will be paying close attention to shifts in AI, the workforce, and the market, and steadily investing in purposeful technology innovation that complements human strengths, such as creativity, problem-solving, and judgment, which AI can’t replicate. 2026 will mark a turning point where workforce redesign becomes a practical requirement, and organizations that approach AI with clarity and intention will stand at the forefront of building resilient, future-proof teams.”

Alex Conway, Principal Software Engineer at DataRobot

“In the coming year, we expect to see AI workflows in customer service environments increasingly move from pilots into production. Many organizations have been working diligently to ‘get their data right,’ and in 2026, early adopters will begin deploying their AI workflows at scale. As a result, human customer service agents will focus on only the most sensitive requests while moving into ‘AI trainer’ roles, ensuring AI agents are operating effectively and staying apprised of the latest product updates, company messaging, and more. As AI agents become more effective and reliable, human workers will play an essential role in ensuring they are representing the brand faithfully, at every turn.”

Jennifer Crawford, Director of Solution Engineering & SaaS Presales at Access

Rising Expectations Will Redefine Digital Records Management in 2026.

“In 2026, rising customer expectations for seamless, responsive digital experiences will fundamentally reshape how we store, structure, and retrieve data. As users increasingly expect workplace technology to match the convenience and intuitive design of their favorite consumer apps, organizations will demand unified platforms that go beyond security and compliance to simplify records management and adapt effortlessly to changing workflows. Providers who deliver auditable AI-powered classification, integrated governance controls, and smooth transitions between active management and archiving will set the standard. Ultimately, success will hinge not just on technical capability, but on creating experiences that inspire confidence and make managing digital records as natural as using the best everyday technology.”

Jim DeCarlo, VP of Channel at Sonar

Super VARs Will Reshape the DevOps Landscape Through Strategic Acquisitions

“2026 will see the emergence of ‘Super VARs,’ massive partners who have acquired other companies in order to expand their comprehensive capabilities across the entire software development lifecycle. These moves aren’t just about scale; they’re about an overnight transformation of expertise.

“Here’s the new reality: a traditional infrastructure partner can acquire/partner with niche DevOps-focused companies and immediately position themselves as experts in modern development practices, complete with the skills, IP, and customer relationships that took years to build organically. This means that smaller, specialized partners who once owned their niches will seek opportunities to “meet in the channel” with well-funded giants that have deep existing customer relationships, as well as the ability to bundle solutions across the entire stack. The smaller partners will shift their focus to highly specialised services and managed services away from resale.

“These ‘Super VARs’ will have unprecedented negotiating power, deliver more sophisticated services, and have deeper strategic relationships. They’ll also be able to deliver truly integrated solutions across complex tech stacks. Vendors who adapt their partner strategies to this new reality–investing in scale AND skill will unlock the value of the channel.”

AI Code Generation Meets Reality: The Verification Gap That’s Reshaping Channel Sales Conversations

“Poor software quality will cost the US more than $2.41 trillion annually, with nearly two-thirds attributed to cyber-crime fueled by insecure code. As AI-generated code floods development pipelines, the need for code verification creates an enormous opportunity for channel partners who can distinguish between AI hype and operational reality.

“Yes, it’s true that developers are embracing ‘vibe coding’ workflows where AI dramatically accelerates initial code creation, but this also exponentially increases code volume and demands rigorous verification and remediation. The bottleneck has shifted from creation to verification, and the vast majority of organizations haven’t adapted their development workflows, tooling, or governance processes to address this new reality.

“The winning message for 2026 isn’t ‘AI will replace your developers,’ or even ‘AI will make your developers faster.’ It’s ‘AI will transform your developers into verifiers and innovators, but only if you have the right verification infrastructure to ensure you’re producing code you can trust.'”

Randall Degges, VP of Developer Relations & AI Engineering at Snyk

2026 Is the Year AI Agents Stop Taking Orders and Start Running the Pipeline

“This won’t feel like automation—it will feel like handing operational control to a distributed digital workforce. The more autonomy agents have, the harder it becomes to understand why they make certain decisions or detect when they drift into unintended behavior. Most companies will adopt these systems in pursuit of efficiency long before they establish the governance required to oversee them.”

Luiz Domingos, Chief Technology Officer at Mitel

Chief Technology Officers Will Also Become Chief Trust Officers

“The role of the Chief Technology Officer is undergoing a profound transformation. As AI becomes embedded in every process, product, and decision across the enterprise, trust is emerging as the defining measure of success. Simply building reliable systems is no longer enough; organizations must also earn confidence in how data is handled, automated decisions are made, and how technology aligns with shared values.

“The next generation of CTOs will act as Chief Trust Officers, striking a balance between innovation and integrity. They will champion transparency in AI models, establish clear governance frameworks, and ensure that ethical considerations guide every stage of design, deployment, and oversight. In an environment where AI adoption still faces a significant trust gap, confidence will become as important as delivering new capabilities.

“Trust will become both a leadership mandate and a market differentiator. Organizations that succeed will treat responsible innovation not as a limitation but as a strategic advantage, proving that in the AI era, trust is the true currency of transformation.”

The Strongest Technology Strategies Will Prioritize Durability Over Disruption

“In the race to innovate, many organizations chase disruption at the expense of resilience. The next chapter of digital transformation will reward those who evolve intentionally, striking a balance between adaptability and durability by prioritizing technologies that integrate seamlessly and grow with the business over time.

“Traditional communications systems, like voice, continue to endure because they meet a fundamental human need: clarity and connection. As AI reshapes operations, organizations will favor tools that combine interoperability, security, and trust to achieve sustainable success, not just chase minute-to-minute trends.”

Elena Drozd, SVP of Data Science at Bombora

Prescriptive AI Will Become the Cornerstone of B2B Marketing Strategy.

“AI insights are moving beyond descriptive (what happened) and predictive (what might happen) to prescriptive AI intelligence—what should be done next, based on all data and results. Organizations will begin trusting AI not just to analyze past performance, but to take action in the moment—whether that’s launching new creative, reallocating spend mid-flight, or adjusting account prioritization in sales pipelines. Prescriptive AI will become the strategic engine behind dynamic campaign orchestration, replacing many of the manual optimizations that marketing and RevOps teams still manage today.

“Marketers who embrace this shift will see faster cycles, sharper personalization, and stronger ROI. Those who cling to static dashboards and campaign cadences will be outpaced by competitors with more adaptive, responsive, and autonomous marketing infrastructure.”

GEO Will Displace SEO as Generative AI Redefines Content Discovery.

“With AI-generated summaries becoming the new default entry point for digital research, the role of traditional SEO will shrink. Brand visibility is being redefined, and marketers must optimize not only for search rankings but also for inclusion in AI-generated responses. Instead, GEO will define how brands appear in AI overviews and contextual snippets. GEO requires a different mindset: it’s not about ranking for keywords, but earning inclusion in trusted content ecosystems that generative models draw from.

“That means prioritizing content relevance, semantic clarity, contextual alignment, and topical authority—not just backlinks or keyword stuffing. Marketers must start thinking like machine learning models: What content structure signals expertise? What metadata boosts discoverability? What trusted sources should we collaborate with? These are the new questions that will define success in an AI-first content landscape.

Alternatively, for publishers, GEO will also become essential to sustaining monetization and content discoverability as users bypass search engines for AI-driven summaries. GEO isn’t the future of content strategy—it’s the present and will become mission-critical in 2026.”

Sebastian Enderlein, Chief Technology Officer at DeepL

“I believe 2026 will be the year AI stops experimenting and starts executing, at a scale we haven’t yet seen. After a cycle of pilots and proofs of concept, businesses are now ready to scale, and they’re betting big on agentic AI to do it.

“For consumers, the ‘wow effect’ of AI will continue to grow—especially in video and image generation—as tools become more fluent, expressive, and embedded in daily life. However, beyond the spectacle, the real transformation will occur within organizations. These systems are now reliably handling repetitive, knowledge-based tasks at scale, freeing many to focus on higher-impact, creative problem-solving.

“At the same time, the business side of AI will mature. Vendors will stabilize, monetization models will evolve from usage-based to outcome-driven, and productivity—not novelty—will become the new benchmark.”

Dave Eyler, VP of Product Management at SingleStore

“Companies will rebuild for operational efficiency. The focus shifts to getting more value per dollar—streamlining pipelines, eliminating duplication, and consolidating tools. Governance and observability will grow in importance as AI complexity increases, particularly in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Automation and orchestration will take center stage.”

Steve Fenton, Principal DevEx Researcher at Octopus Deploy

“Software delivery fluctuates between technical methods and management frameworks. Over the past year, there has been a growing trend towards less technical working practices. The effect is cyclical. When managers explore the technical route, it reveals increasing levels of required complexity. The management frameworks appear far simpler and seem to offer an escape from complicated sets of techniques and practices. Eventually, the management frameworks fail to deliver sustainable and reliable software delivery, and we must return to technical routes once more.

“Organizations that are moving away from DevOps will start to see cracks appearing in 2026, and managers will be ready to accept once more that software requires technical skills by the end of the year.”

Todd Fisher, Co-founder and CEO of CallTrackingMetrics

Voice will reclaim its place as the fastest, most natural interface.

“Voice will become the fastest and most natural UX again. By 2026, real-time AI voice agents will handle nuanced calls, pausing naturally, matching sentiment, and escalating when empathy is needed. Rather than IVRs, brands will deploy ‘voice flows’ that can transact, schedule, and recall context across calls. Humans will stay in the loop—but now as supervisors of orchestration, not script followers.”

Scott Fulton, Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO) BlueCat

AI alters how products work and how developers build them.

“AI continues to appear in two places: within the products and within the development process. Traditional machine learning has been part of many systems for years. What’s new is how LLMs affect day-to-day engineering work. Developers can utilize these tools to accelerate coding, explore new ideas, and resolve issues more quickly. But they need guardrails and the right skills. As engineers learn how to prompt these systems and use them effectively, they will become part of the workflow.

“In 2026, the impact will be clear. AI-assisted development will shorten development cycles, reduce repetitive work, and enable teams to experiment more effectively. AI inside products will take on more complex tasks, such as performance issues that cross network boundaries or depend on patterns you only see when you observe many environments at once.”

Jonathan Greene, EVP of Americas at Incubeta

“In 2026, CMOs can no longer rely on long-term transformation roadmaps in a world that reinvents itself every quarter. Privacy regulation, platform volatility, and rapid AI shifts have made annual plans obsolete the moment they are approved.

“The brands that will outperform next year are building agentic marketing systems that operate with real-time awareness and real-time action. These systems sense meaningful changes in behavior, decide how to respond, and adapt creative, media, and measurement automatically. Their advantage comes from the foundation behind this adaptability. Clean, connected data, unified knowledge bases, contextual system design, and a clear GTM strategy create a proprietary knowledge engine that decodes human intent and produces insights consumer LLMs cannot access.

“This foundation is what makes agentic marketing so powerful. It does not try to predict the future; it is built to compete with constant change, redirect investment instantly, and scale what is working before competitors even notice the shift. In 2026, the advantage will not belong to the brands that plan the best. It will belong to the brands that adapt the fastest.”

Scott Gregory, CISO at Sonar

Developer’s Shift From Curator to Creator.

“We’re seeing an exponential increase in code volume thanks to AI, which has created a complex challenge. The primary threat isn’t just a 1:1 increase in flaws; it’s a problem of velocity and scale. Since humans can no longer manually verify code quality at the speed AI generates it, it has forced a fundamental shift in the developer’s role: from being a primary code creator to being a code curator and validator.

“The developer’s new core skill will be leveraging advanced tooling to validate AI-generated code at scale and knowing precisely where to focus their human attention. As CISOs in 2026, we must work closely with our development teams to help them drive these needed changes, not from an oversight role, but from a technology partner role. We should ask how we can help support building or buying the automation required to make this change.”

Alex Halliday, Co-Founder and CEO at AirOps

SEO budgets will expand to include AI-driven discovery.

“More brands will start moving their SEO budgets toward the places people are actually starting to search more, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Ranking on Google will increasingly become less of an advantage if brands are invisible in AI platforms, and the most successful teams will learn how to make their content easy for these systems to understand and surface. Being the first answer will matter more than being on the first page.”

The AI search gap will widen.

“As more people turn to AI interfaces to find information, the gap between brands that invested in this shift and those that didn’t will become increasingly clear. The early adopters will reach customers at the exact points where decisions get made, when they’re looking for reliable answers, comparing products, and forming opinions about what to trust. Their content will be referenced, surfaced, and shared across these systems, creating momentum over time. The rest won’t disappear overnight, but they’ll start to notice significantly smaller returns from the same amount of effort.”

Brands will need to treat content as their main lever if they want to win in the new AI world.

“That means understanding how these premium users behave and influencing them with high-quality, personalized content that supports complex, high-consideration decisions. Many of these users will be B2B buyers, so approaches will often resemble ABM campaigns traditionally reserved for B2B. Offsite influence will also grow in importance, creating a behind-the-scenes ecosystem for placing content where it matters most. As this happens, content quality and content measurement will become key, and our attribution systems will need to evolve to capture the real impact of our investments.”

Guy Hanson, VP of Customer Engagement at Validity

AI Will Make Email Fraud Indistinguishable from the Real Thing — Here is Why That’s Dangerous.

“In the next year, we’ll see email marketers understand they are not just competing with other brands but are now fighting against an increasingly sophisticated fraud landscape that threatens to poison the entire channel. Scammers love AI and are becoming increasingly smart about it. They can now generate near-perfect replicas of legitimate messages, meaning consumers will increasingly struggle to identify a threat to their inbox. Even legitimate marketers could see engagement drop as inbox trust erodes. As mailbox providers’ filters adapt to this shift, the bar for ‘trusted sender’ status will rise dramatically next year. As a result, we will almost certainly see an increase in false positive spam folder placements.”

Marketers Will Adopt SEO-Style Tactics to Stay Visible.

“AI-driven inboxes are changing how people see email—literally. With Gmail and Apple Mail now auto-summarizing content, email marketers face a new creative challenge as they are no longer fully in control of what a subscriber sees first. Marketers will shift how they approach their copy. Instead of crafting solely for human readers, they will need to appeal to machines, too—writing with algorithms in mind and adopting SEO-style principles to guide how AI interprets their emails.

“We’ll see more marketers think about hierarchy and language the way web teams think about metadata. Even subtle word choices and formatting could influence what an inbox summary displays. It’s an entirely new skillset for email marketers: learning to communicate fluently with both the customer and the algorithm without losing the brand’s voice in the process.”

Matthew Hausknecht, Principal AI Researcher at DataRobot

“In 2026, we’ll see AI-powered robots begin to graduate from controlled environments to more unpredictable real-world scenarios. While many robots are partially operated by a human, we expect they’ll continue pushing towards greater autonomy as they learn from the messy, real world. They’ll fail early and often, but just like with humans, failure is often the greatest teacher – and we know that AI is an incredibly quick learner. 2026 will be physical AI’s breakthrough moment, with robots going from proof-of-concept demonstrations to economically viable realities in a variety of controlled and semi-controlled environments.”

Philip Heijkoop, Global Practice Lead of Developer Experience at Valiantys

Mike Herrick, CTO at Airship

The Experience Gap Becomes an Existential Risk

“The ‘Experience Gap’ describes the widening divide between what customers expect—frictionless, contextually relevant, and human-feeling interactions—and what brands actually deliver. In many organizations, marketing and product teams still operate in isolation, running parallel systems that result in disjointed customer journeys.

“Customers, however, experience none of these boundaries. They move fluidly between messages, screens, and channels, and expect the brand to ‘remember’ who they are and what they need. When that continuity breaks, so does trust. In this environment, mobile devices have become the gravitational center of the experience. It’s where customers act, convert, and form lasting impressions. To close the Experience Gap, brands must design for that center by using mobile-first orchestration to unify all other touchpoints into a cohesive, continuous experience. In short, the brands that can’t integrate will fade into the background. Those that do will define the new standard for modern loyalty.

No-Code Unifies Marketing and Product

“For years, a wall has divided marketing and product. One side builds awareness; the other builds experiences. In 2026, that wall finally comes down. The rise of no-code native experience editors marks a structural shift in how brands operate. Non-technical teams will design, deploy, and iterate experiences directly, without relying on developer bandwidth or release cycles. This democratization of creation isn’t just about speed; it’s about alignment. The people closest to the customer can now build directly for the customer.

“Expect to see: rich, multi-screen app and web experiences built and optimized in hours, not months; interactive surveys and embedded content that capture preference data in the moment; and real-time orchestration connecting every message, interaction, and conversion.

“The impact is profound. Instead of fragmented workflows between departments, no-code systems create shared ownership of the customer journey. Experience becomes the new language of collaboration, turning brand vision into action at the pace of modern expectations. In this model, marketing and product aren’t separate functions; they’re co-authors of growth.”

Robyn Hyra, Director of Industry Solutions ‑ Logistics at Cleo

Human-Centered Organizations Supported by AI Will Define Competitive Advantage.

“Many organizations are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Automate or hire. Alternatively, they start seeing the efficiency benefits of AI as a sign to keep driving cost savings by cutting staff. As AI takes over repetitive, low-value tasks that once consumed logistics teams, the companies that win will be those that bring people back to the center of the business. People will have the space to return to what they do best: deepening customer relationships, developing talent, and building real expertise. This will enable companies to cut through the noise, not the people. Leaders who fail to rethink how their people create value in an AI-powered organization will face higher employee attrition rates than their peers. But here’s the kicker: They won’t just lose people—they’ll lose the wrong people. And the ones that are left won’t be ready to scale, adapt, or lead.”

By the end of 2026, the logistics industry will be split into two camps: companies that utilize AI to orchestrate outcomes and those that continue to react to disruptions after they occur.

“Supply chains just aren’t predictable anymore, and 2026 will be a defining moment for logistics leaders. From extreme weather and global trade instability to labor shortages, disruptions are hitting harder and more often. The next major shock isn’t a question of if, but when.

“The gap between leaders and laggards is about to get a lot wider, and the divide will become clear. Companies are either orchestrating the outcomes they want with the help of AI, or they’re reacting after damage is already done. The reactive companies will keep relying on fragmented, siloed systems running on inconsistent data, and every disruption will be a make-or-break scramble. But the ones that pull ahead will be those using AI intentionally. They will deploy AI and autonomous agents as a strategically critical part of how the business runs, embedding them directly into how they plan, execute, and adapt. These orchestrators will be ready, no matter what the next disruption brings.”

Sigrún Ívarsdóttir, Product Manager at Configit

AI will become a bigger part of manufacturing operations, including configuration and knowledge capture.

“AI is poised to continue transforming the manufacturing industry in the coming year in many different ways. For one thing, I expect we’ll see AI become more embedded across design and production systems, especially in connecting systems like PLM and ERP/Sales (for configuration data) to reduce silos and speed up product decisions. Additionally, configuration will become more predictive, with AI and integrations helping identify configurations that are both market-relevant and feasible to produce.”

2026 will be a race to capture institutional knowledge.

“With an aging workforce, manufacturers face a critical knowledge transfer challenge. Capturing and digitizing configuration and engineering knowledge will be essential in order for manufacturers to stay competitive. In 2026, we expect to see an acceleration of efforts to digitize this tribal knowledge. AI can play a key role in preserving and surfacing the expertise of veteran workers.”

Cross-divisional alignment will take hold as customer expectations grow.

“A big shift will come from tighter integration between PLM and ERP/Sales, ensuring engineering, manufacturing, sales and service all work from a shared source of truth. This will be an important shift as customers continue to expect more personalization with shorter lead times, which puts more pressure on aligning what’s offered commercially with what can actually be built.”

Data interoperability will be a competitive advantage.

“Data interoperability will become a real differentiator, as manufacturers realize that aligning systems across the product lifecycle is key to scaling AI effectively.”

Adam Jackson, Global Head of ESM Practice at Valiantys

“Organizations will double down on AI-powered Service Management, going beyond the ‘do an AI’ approach we have seen in the last couple of years. We’ll see tangible, agentic AI solutions driving improved service performance. Why does this matter? Service performance is the key KPI wrapper for any organisation, whether serving internal or external customers.

“The lines between traditional ITIL and SMIL (Service Management Infrastructure Library) will blur even further with a single platform approach to Service Management becoming ever more prominent. Platforms that operate on a single-module basis with a Service Portal for all approaches will thrive. Traditionally, Service Management has been viewed as an IT function; however, all organisational departments can benefit further from an omni-platform approach to Service Management.

“Mergers and acquisitions will become the norm for organisations that have future-proofed their approach to a modular service model, experiencing reduced pain during the transition, compared to those that have siloed business unit methodologies. Enterprises that can integrate quickly will see higher and quicker ROI than those that have a segregated business function approach. In recent years, we’ve seen a boom in boutique companies in segments like AI, and the bigger players will be watching closely to identify potential acquisition targets.”

Cliff Jurkiewicz, VP of Global Strategy at Phenom

HR will cease to exist in its current form.

“Organizations will add the Chief Productivity Officer (CPO) to the C-suite, and HR will be redefined into something new, led by the CPO. The position will combine HR and IT into a single organization focused on driving people and technology to deliver outcomes for the business. People in the HR function won’t go away; the function itself will.”

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) takes off.

“GEO is the new gold rush. Organizations that can optimize their brands inside GEO will thrive. This will become a key topic for boards of directors given its direct impact on revenue.”

The rise of human-first enterprises.

“We’ll see a shift from human-centric AI to human-first enterprises. This is a grounding of how AI is going to impact the value of human work. It’s going to make that work a primary driver of organizations.”

Work blueprints will replace job descriptions.

“Traditional job descriptions born out of the Industrial Age have outlived their usefulness. In 2026, we’ll see a shift to work blueprints that focus on skills and outcomes, demonstration of experience, and what values a company is looking for in a given role. This shift will happen because employers must remain agile. Experience will matter, but will be a secondary driver to skills.”

GenAI models will acquire hiring data.

“OpenAI is creating an AI platform to connect companies and workers, with an underlying intelligence layer with skills data to help improve job matching – an area many companies struggle with today. This measurable insight can help companies better understand talent supply and monetize job matching, which could be very lucrative.”

Frank Kenney, Senior Director of Industry Solutions at Cleo

In 2026, the leading supply chain organizations will be those that harness AI to handle complexity while focusing on scale.

“By 2026, the familiar question ‘Dude, where’s my truck?’ will evolve into a simple prompt that will set off an intelligent chain reaction. Behind the scenes, AI-driven systems will automatically reschedule dock appointments, update delivery timelines, and—if you’re lucky—help you avoid costly chargebacks tied to late deliveries.

“Emerging AI agents will identify missed scans, detect route delays caused by weather, and trigger proactive recovery actions long before a human even notices. In this new era, knowing an hour before “on time” becomes the real competitive advantage. Manual processes, on the other hand, will quickly turn into operational dead weight—unless they’re powering white-glove, always-on customer experiences.

“From a product and services standpoint, 2026 won’t be about reinvention. It will be about refinement and scale. Logistics and 3PL providers will double down on the basics, including faster onboarding, real-time KPI visibility, and SLA transparency. And here’s the bottom line: If your systems aren’t digitized, integrated, and automated by 2026, you’re already behind. Shippers will flock to those who can move the fastest, prove their performance, and adapt in real-time. It won’t be another 2021-style surge, but it will be miles better than the freight recession of 2023 and 2024. Volume is climbing, cost per node is recovering, and capacity is tightening again. This points to a shifting market and a “make money” year in 2026. This will be the year when operational precision meets commercial payoff, and the players who can orchestrate both will dominate the field.”

Ed Keisling, Chief AI Officer at Progress Software

From Retrieval to Reasoning: The Rise of Agentic RAG in Enterprise AI

“Over the next few years, agentic systems combined with evolved RAG capabilities will fundamentally reshape how organizations operate. This isn’t about automating tasks; it’s about creating intelligent systems that can engage in continuous, multi-step reasoning, coordinate across systems, and drive decisions in real-time.

“RAG pipelines have already become the enterprise standard for grounding generative AI in trusted data. But in 2026, we’ll see a critical evolution as RAG integrates more deeply with reasoning models and true agentic processing. Organizations will develop domain-specific systems that integrate retrieval with agents capable of making plans, utilizing tools, evaluating outcomes, and adapting based on feedback. This evolved agentic RAG will provide the critical context and information that both humans and agents need to make better decisions, support customers more effectively, and operate with greater precision and transparency.

“The companies that accelerate forward will be those that unlock the combined value of their structured and unstructured data to fundamentally change how their organization thinks and drives outcomes. It’s about moving from passive retrieval to agentic intelligence.”

SLMs, LLMs, and MCPs converge into blended, purpose-built AI stacks.

“The next 12–18 months will bring an explosion of blended model ecosystems. Enterprises will pair small language models (SLMs) for efficiency and privacy with LLMs for complex reasoning, tied together by Model Context Protocols (MCPs) that create a unified, extensible AI control plane. This multi-model strategy will allow organizations to tailor AI to specific departments, use cases, and regulatory requirements.”

John Kim, CEO of Sendbird

The rise of “100x employees” will force companies to redefine productivity metrics, measuring success by AI token consumption.

“Next year, we’ll see the emergence of 100x employees—people who aren’t just using AI to write emails faster, but orchestrating entire AI workforces to do the work of whole departments. I know of AI engineers who consumed billions of tokens in a single month, building fully functioning products overnight by having various AI models debate and work with each other. The companies that build out their AI workforce will eat their competitors for lunch. The boldest way to measure this: track token consumption by employee. If you’re not maxing out your token limit daily, you’re likely a 1-2x employee still doing a lot of manual work and simply using AI as a tool, rather than having a truly autonomous workforce.”

Support centers will transform into revenue enablers as companies favor growth KPIs over ticket-closing metrics.

“Support organizations have been measured on the wrong metric for decades: how fast can you close a ticket? Those are cost-center metrics. When AI handles routine support autonomously, the role of the support center fundamentally shifts to driving loyalty, creating opportunities to upsell, increase cart size, and convert more into purchases. Sales and marketing metrics haven’t typically been within the domain of customer support teams, but in 2026, forward-thinking organizations will figure out when to engage proactively and how to measure success differently. This will transform support from a cost driver into a revenue enabler.”

Raymond Kok, CEO of Mendix

“Vibe coding platforms are losing steam, with traffic on some vendor sites diminishing by 40 percent. Enterprises are feeling the ‘vibe coding hangover.’ The novelty of churning out a shiny new app in just minutes diminishes quickly when that app can’t be used in an enterprise IT environment without a tremendous amount of time and effort to get it compliant and fully functional. The initial productivity gain is eclipsed by the resources required for maintaining and course-correcting IDE-generated code. Typically, nobody is overseeing this process, leaving organizations with mounting technical debt and an unacceptable risk posture. Even if IT does put the time into getting these apps up and running, maintenance presents another – and continual – challenge since IT will always be facing a maze of workarounds and exceptions with these types of applications.”

Jay Kulkarni, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Theorem

“In 2026, shopping will continue to escalate inside video. Livestreams, creator clips, and short-form content will act as digital storefronts where consumers move from discovery to purchase without ever leaving the screen. Retailers that integrate video commerce directly on their websites are already seeing a measurable impact: a 246% increase in conversions, a 130% surge in engagement, and a 38% lift in repeat purchases.

“AI will make these experiences fluid. As viewers watch, it will pull in product details, pricing, and availability in real-time, turning a moment of interest into an instant checkout. We’re already seeing this with brands experimenting on TikTok Shop, where a creator’s video can drive thousands of direct purchases within minutes. The next step is full integration. Brands will connect their content, commerce, and data systems so every frame of video becomes interactive and measurable. This is where customer experience is headed: fewer clicks, less friction, and a straight path from inspiration to conversion.”

Deirdre Leone, Chief Customer Officer at ContractPodAi

Trust will become the core driver of competitive advantage in 2026.

“Businesses won’t win on speed or personalization alone. Customers will expect ‘explainability-by-design’ across every AI-assisted touchpoint, demanding clear visibility into how insights are generated and decisions are made. CX teams will shift from basic compliance to building transparent experiences that demonstrate ethical intelligence, reliability, and accountability. Trust will evolve into a measurable business asset, informing vendor selection, customer loyalty, and renewal cycles.

Customer experience will shift from capabilities to context.

“In 2025, customers asked what AI could do. In 2026, they’ll ask what AI can understand. The differentiator won’t be raw functionality but the depth of contextual fluency. Leading organizations will develop systems that interpret tone, risk, urgency, and domain-specific nuances in real-time. In sectors like legal, financial services, and healthcare, CX will be defined by AI that adapts to the moment—understanding intent and delivering support aligned to situational needs rather than scripted workflows.”

Customer communities will become co-creators of innovation.

“Forward-thinking brands will shift from a top-down approach to cultivating ecosystems where customers share insights, shape best practices, and influence product evolution. Community-led collaboration will accelerate innovation and create feedback loops that outperform traditional research cycles. In this environment, CX leaders will act as ecosystem architects—connecting customers, partners, and AI systems to surface real-world use cases and drive shared value.”

Daniel Lereya, Chief Product and Technology Officer at monday.com

“The nature of work will change completely in 2026 as companies increase their adoption of AI Agents. This transformation will begin in go-to-market and service teams, where customer engagement, support, and delivery are critical, before expanding across all business domains. Instead of managing tasks, companies will increasingly rely on agents to autonomously execute them, handling everything from routine processes to complex workflows. This evolution will fundamentally change how companies are built and scaled. Future organizations will be far leaner, basing their growth and expertise on a digital workforce of agents rather than traditional headcount. For enterprises, this shift will introduce new roles dedicated to building, training, and orchestrating these agents, reshaping internal structures and redefining growth dynamics, especially in customer-facing and service-oriented functions such as content and design.

“Next year, the barrier to building agents will collapse, enabling small teams to achieve enterprise-level capabilities. At the same time, ‘vibe coding’ will become a core part of the business stack. As LLMs continue to evolve, people will be able to deeply integrate hyper-tailored solutions on top of their current tech stack into their day-to-day operations, making AI a true execution layer of business. As a result, SMBs and startups will be able to compete at an infinite scale, unbound by headcount or hierarchy. Software will stop being a tool and start being a real collaborator – a teammate that contributes, executes, and evolves alongside humans.”

Shanea Leven, Chief Executive Officer at Empromptu.ai

The AI Hype Bubble Pops, the Reliability Era Begins

“2023-2025 were about demos. 2026 will be about production accuracy. Enterprises will stop paying for ‘magic moments’ and start demanding systems that operate with 95%+ reliability. The shift isn’t just coming — it’s already started.”

Sales Becomes Less About Persuasion, More About Confidence Transfer

“Buyers are drowning in AI noise. Features don’t close deals anymore—confidence does. In 2026, the sellers who win aren’t the ones with the best pitch deck. They’re the ones who transfer certainty that this will actually work in production.”

The New Prestige Job Becomes ‘AI Operator’

“The most valuable role in 2026 won’t be prompt engineering or ML engineering. It’ll be orchestrating AI-native systems toward business outcomes. This becomes the new product manager.”

Sam Liang, CEO and Founder of Otter.ai

“As AI-generated content continues to flood the internet, the human voice will emerge as the gold standard for authentic communication in 2026. By the end of the year, my prediction is that as much as 90 percent of what we read will be mostly AI-generated, with human writing fading further into the background. Faced with this shift, voice will ultimately become the new operating system for work. The spoken voice carries nuance and emotion that cannot be replicated by text. Organizations will turn to voice as their most reliable window into original thought. The primary source for genuine human insight. The place where ideas originate before AI transforms them into content. Harnessed properly, voice will be AI’s most powerful asset and businesses’ most valuable differentiator.”

John Maculley, Global High Tech Industry Strategist at Dassault Systèmes

Industry Transformation & Innovation in 2026

“The semiconductor industry is undergoing an exponential transformation, driven by rising complexity, emerging technologies, and shifting global demand. Advanced process nodes are projected to achieve 2nm by 2025, with research targeting angstrom-level precision. Looking ahead to 2026, innovations like 3D packaging, quantum computing, and AI accelerators are shaping the next generation of chips, while executives focus on reducing costs and accelerating time-to-market.”

Increased AI-Driven Design & Manufacturability

“Coordinating equipment development with chip designs, process technologies, and materials is increasingly critical for faster time-to-yield and improved system-level reliability. In 2026, we expect that AI-driven virtual twin simulations and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approaches will enable companies to optimize designs digitally, design for manufacturability, reduce reliance on physical prototypes, and improve systems performance.”

Geopolitics, Supply Chain & Ecosystem Collaboration

“Restricted access to advanced chip-making technologies and global supply chain pressures are creating four distinct and sovereign semiconductor ecosystems in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and China. In 2026, collaboration, technology co-optimization, and integrated platforms across these ecosystems will be crucial to ensuring resilience, security, and a competitive advantage.”

Surging Demand for AI and High-Performance Computing, IP Management

“Rising demand for AI accelerators, such as GPUs, and high-performance computing is driving a focus on energy efficiency, thermal management, and system-level performance. Looking forward, fully integrated, cloud-based engineering platforms will help manage data, protect intellectual property, maintain traceability, and reduce costly misalignment or late-stage revisions across organizations and value chains.”

Raju Malhotra, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Certinia

Agentic AI Gives Rise to a Hybrid Human-Agent Model

“Agentic AI is freeing services firms from relying strictly on human knowledge workers. Next year, we will see a massive increase in hybrid human-agent teams in the sector. Agents help supercharge their human counterparts, allowing businesses to take on more new business and accelerate their delivery.

“Almost all human workflows within the services industry will be transformed by this model eventually. In 2026, the biggest impact will be on high-volume, standardized processes that today consume precious time. This includes project planning, resource allocation, contract compliance, time and expense capture, and reconciliations. Human workers will be liberated to focus on higher-value advisory and client engagement.

“To maximize results from this new model, service organizations will focus on skills arbitrage. In the past, services firms had to determine if they had enough people to take on client work. Now, they need to figure out how to balance human and agent skills. Organizations will do this by prioritizing governance of hybrid teams, cultural adoption of agents, and reskilling consultants toward higher-order problem solving.”

Bye-bye Billable Hours: Outcome-Based Billing Takes Hold

“Services firms traditionally relied on the billable hour to charge clients, but the billable hour model will become increasingly irrelevant in 2026 thanks to agentic AI. It will be replaced by outcome-based billing. Agentic AI systems don’t just automate tasks. They operate with defined goals, seek and interpret data contextually, and take action dynamically. This allows services firms to eliminate manual work and scope, staff, manage, and deliver projects with a level of precision and predictability that aligns naturally with value-based models. Instead of selling hours, firms will sell outcomes, while AI agents continuously track progress, optimize resource allocation, and adapt in real-time. This means that services firms will be measured on their business impact rather than their input.”

Raghu Malpani, CTO at UiPath

Enter the Command Center

“Organizations’ adoption of AI in all its forms has advanced faster than their ability to govern, manage, and orchestrate it. The need for stronger oversight is only increasing as organizations deploy more agents and give them access to a wider range of core processes, demanding continuous, embedded visibility and real-time control. A new approach is emerging to meet these challenges: the establishment of an operational layer that centralizes and integrates governance, control, and orchestration—an agentic command center. In 2026, organizations will devote significant time, energy, and investment to ensure their agentic operations have the governance frameworks and infrastructure needed to scale safely and effectively.”

Vertical Ascent

“While the overall agentic AI market is expanding rapidly, one part of it—vertical agentic solutions—is moving even faster. Over the past year, dozens of vertical agentic solutions have entered the market from a wide array of players, including hyperscalers, platform vendors, and startups. Today, there are offerings for a broad range of areas, covering more domains and enjoying increased adoption across sectors, including financial services, retail and consumer goods, customer operations, and healthcare administration. Analysts describe agentic verticalization as early but rapidly maturing, with the largest enterprises leading adoption, pointing to a broader trend of agentic AI moving from a promising technology to a practical system for getting work done.”

Shannon Mason, Chief Strategy Officer at Tempo Software

Development Teams Will Break the Cycle of Unnecessary Complexity.

“In 2026, software teams will begin challenging the rising complexity of their own development environments, shifting from simply executing work to questioning why that work exists in the first place. After years of accumulating tools, rituals, and dependencies, developers will increasingly pause to ask whether a feature, deadline, or workflow actually warrants the effort. Strategic portfolio management (SPM) – born from the chaos of large, interdependent software portfolios – will evolve into a practical way for engineering organizations to reconnect strategic intent with the reality of shipping code. Instead of massive transformations, teams will adopt SPM practices in targeted, incremental ways that help them see capacity, surface bottlenecks, and make smarter tradeoffs. The software teams that get ahead will be the ones that empower developers to influence not just how code gets delivered, but which work deserves to be built at all.”

The Next Big Shift in Software Isn’t Delivery, It’s Planning.

“Software organizations are about to confront the uncomfortable truth that their planning practices have fallen dangerously behind their development velocity. For years, we’ve reinvented how we build—Agile, DevOps, cloud-native architectures, and now GenAI copilots—yet we still plan in rigid six-week cycles that are outdated by mid-week. With more than 40,000 new software projects launched every day, static planning has become a structural risk rather than an operational nuisance.

“In 2026, the software companies that pull ahead will treat planning as a living system, continuously refreshed by real-time signals from engineering, product, and customer feedback loops. Instead of forcing teams to work around stale plans, leaders will empower teams to reshape priorities as dependencies shift and capacity changes. This long-overdue shift to adaptive planning will emerge as one of the most important drivers of software innovation—and the clearest marker separating resilient organizations from the ones struggling to keep up.”

Lee McClendon, CDTO at Tricentis

AI-Powered Development Will Demand Quality to Keep Pace.

“AI-powered development tools have transformed how quickly teams can build and ship software, but in 2026, the mandate will shift from ‘move faster’ to ‘move faster while staying secure.’ Acceleration alone won’t matter if quality lags, especially as stakeholders push for measurable AI ROI. Teams will need to weave AI across the entire software development lifecycle as part of intelligent automation frameworks. The real value will come from applying AI to the repeatable, high-effort activities that drain time today, test case generation, maintenance, documentation automation, and developer onboarding.”

Stefan Miedzianowski, Chief Scientist at DeepL

“2026 will undoubtedly be the year of the agent. 2025 was the year when public awareness caught up with the science showing what agents can do, but enterprise adoption at scale will happen in the new year. We will be moving from the innovators on the technology adoption curve to the early majority.

“As we look ahead to 2026, the role of agentic AI in business is expected to become even more pronounced. We see from conversations with our customers that their organizations will increasingly rely on virtual coworkers to streamline operations and enhance decision-making processes. Perhaps more importantly, we will also see a shift in how organizations select AI solutions. There will be a more collaborative approach, with each team selecting the tools that are most suited to their requirements, requesting IT support once they’ve been able to test the solution.

“This widespread integration will lead to more efficient workflows, enabling teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine tasks and free their time to focus on complex topics. As early adopters continue to demonstrate the value of these technologies, we anticipate a ripple effect that will encourage broader acceptance across industries. Ultimately, agentic AI will play a crucial role in driving innovation and improving overall business outcomes in the coming years.”

Dan Miller, EVP Financials and ERP Division at Sage

“In 2026, AI will expand from isolated automation to an agentic experience, and job-centric agents embedded into finance and operations workflows to remove manual steps from day-to-day processes. Routine tasks are automated in real-time, directly within the workflow, and users become reviewers, stepping in only when judgment matters. That shift makes accounting continuous, speeding up the close and reducing errors.

“These agents don’t just automate work; they elevate it. By delivering real-time insights, they provide transparent recommendations where the logic is clear, and decisions stay with business leaders. The payoff is additional time for teams to focus on strategy with control and fast insights. For finance and operations leaders, this means less time chasing reconciliations and more time driving growth.”

Philip Miller, AI Strategist at Progress Software

Agentic AI Orchestration Becomes the First Real Differentiator

“2026 is the year companies finally realize that having more agents doesn’t matter. What matters is getting them to actually work together, with humans guiding when things get tricky. While agents will be everywhere in 2026, what’s interesting is that only a few will figure out how to orchestrate them. The real breakthrough isn’t a smarter model; it’s when multiple agents plan, verify, and hand work off in a way that actually moves the business. When humans become managers of agents instead of prompt writers, you suddenly see huge gains in accuracy and responsiveness. It’s the difference between having a room full of interns and having a coordinated team that knows exactly what it’s accountable for.

AI Coding Turns Into Intelligence Across the Entire Software Chain

“Copilots become boring, in a good way. The real action is AI showing up in testing, refactoring, compliance evidence, and everything in between. The exciting part about AI coding in 2026 isn’t that developers can write faster; it’s that the entire software chain gets smarter. AI will start catching security issues before people do, generating tests you didn’t think of, and producing compliance artifacts automatically. That’s when engineering gets interesting because speed stops being a tradeoff with safety. When AI is woven through every step of the lifecycle, not just the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), developers get to focus on the creative work and let automation handle the guardrails.”

Governance and Regulation Shift From ‘Burden’ to ‘Boost’

“As the EU AI Act and NIST guidance take effect, companies discover something counterintuitive: governance actually enables AI to move faster and more safely. People assume regulation slows innovation, but in 2026, it will do the opposite. Once teams build model cards, redaction routines, and evaluation gates directly into their pipelines, the guesswork disappears, and AI becomes much more predictable. The controls become an accelerant. They create the structure AI has been missing and give leaders the confidence to scale. When compliance is part of the infrastructure, not a last-minute scramble, AI stops feeling risky and starts delivering value at enterprise speed.”

Pavel Minarik, VP of Product Security at Progress Software

AI matures from junior.

“2026 will see continued development in how AI is used as a partner for security teams. Already moving beyond basic automation, we expect AI evolutions to accelerate as agentic systems and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) become everyday tools. Especially for SMBs that often operate with lean staff and aging infrastructure, platforms that provide secure access to their own trusted knowledge can make all the difference. Simple and verifiable access to things like incident-response playbooks, protocols, and threat intel without needing to build custom pipelines makes major strides towards democratizing the use of AI. This helps all organizations investigate and respond faster while maintaining the governance, auditability, and compliance they simply can’t compromise on.”

FOMO fades away.

“While 2025 was focused on pilot programs and experimentations, 2026 will demand proof. SMBs can no longer afford AI investments that don’t deliver real outcomes. Amid the urgency to prove value, tools like agentic RAG stand out. They provide a simple yet necessary layer, allowing teams to retrieve trusted internal information securely, avoid errors, and demonstrate measurable improvements in response speed, compliance readiness, and decision quality. With so many flashy experimental options, agentic RAG helps AI earn its keep.”

John Morris, Chief Executive Officer at Ocient

Identity prediction will shape the next generation of privacy-first marketing.

“As signal loss accelerates and data privacy rules tighten, marketers will shift from resolving identity to predicting it. In 2026, predictive AI will become a critical component of privacy-compliant targeting, powering real-time personalization without relying on third-party identifiers.

“The future of digital advertising and marketing insights won’t just connect the dots; it will anticipate behaviors, preferences, and engagement patterns before they happen. Brands and platforms that invest in data infrastructures capable of processing massive, rapidly growing data volumes – and running predictive models directly where that data lives – will be those that turn privacy-safe prediction into improved performance, lower acquisition costs, and deeper customer intelligence. This translates identity prediction into higher-value audiences and marketing outcomes that maximize ROI and meet campaign objectives without overspending.”

Shailesh Nalawadi, VP of Product at Sendbird

AI agents will flip CX economics: longer conversations become profitable, not costly.

“The per-minute cost structure of AI agents fundamentally changes the economics of customer service. Unlike human agents paid by the hour, where a three-minute conversation versus a nine-minute conversation significantly impacts cost, AI agents make extended conversations nearly cost-neutral. This economic shift enables businesses to move beyond reactive first-call resolution metrics and invest time in relationship building – asking customers about their satisfaction with recent orders, gathering preferences, and building richer profiles without the pressure to end conversations quickly.”

AI agents will extend beyond software to instruct and manage the physical world.

“New product categories will emerge as AI agents extend past communication channels to manage physical devices. Soon, AI agents will be able to instruct the physical world that customers engage with. Take, for example, walking into an auto parts store, conversing with a kiosk about the battery you need, and having that AI agent activate a conveyor belt to transport the part from the warehouse to the front desk. This intersection of agentic systems and robotics transforms customer service from purely digital interactions into experiences that bridge software and the physical world.”

Agent-to-agent (A2A) communication protocols will become the new API battleground.

“As platforms like OpenAI create agent ecosystems, the question of how agents communicate becomes critical. Does Walmart create an agent that connects to OpenAI’s agent? What is the interface protocol? This evolution toward A2A communication represents a fundamental shift in how services integrate, moving from APIs that simply connect software to protocols that enable agents to discover, authenticate, and transact autonomously. The companies that establish these standards early will wield significant power.”

Erik Nieves, Founder and CEO at Plus One Robotics

AI’s true value lies in chaos, not control.

“AI for manufacturing robots is effectively meaningless, not because it isn’t possible, but because it is unnecessary. AI will prove most innovative in variable, unpredictable environments like warehouses, construction, and agriculture, far more than in high-volume manufacturing. The ability for robots to leverage advanced AI models for decision-making and remote operation will become the defining competitive edge. In 2026, expect “AI in motion” to separate the innovators from the imitators and redraw the map of robotics leadership.”

Fredrik Nilsson, Vice President of the Americas at Axis Communications

“In today’s data-driven world, informed decision making is the cornerstone of sustainable business success. In 2026, I expect AI-powered video analytics to continue transforming enterprise workflows that drive smarter decisions and measurable business impact. Today’s cameras and sensors are increasingly used to generate business intelligence and improve operational efficiency, driving improvements in quality, safety, and customer experience. These solutions deliver tangible results across industries, reducing downtime, optimizing workforce resilience, and enhancing compliance while providing business intelligence insights that move the organization forward.

“Within manufacturing, for example, companies are finding new value from video technology by integrating it into its industrial processes to enhance operational efficiency and quality assurance. Not only can advanced cameras easily integrate into the challenging conditions of industrial manufacturing environments, but they can also play a vital role in diagnosing the cause of production line delays and incidents, optimizing machine settings afterward to ultimately support continuous improvement and efficiency across operations. These devices can also provide critical visual data that allows AI-based analytics to precisely monitor and inspect the entire production process, streamlining and enhancing quality control, and ensuring consistent, high-quality results at scale.

“This year, we saw these solutions emerge and continue to gain momentum as proven drivers of successful business outcomes, and as we move into 2026, I expect them to play an even bigger role in operations and business intelligence. These devices will empower entire enterprises to feel more confident in making decisions that will have a positive impact on growth.”

Jacob Olson, Senior Director of Solutions at Cleo

Manufacturers Will Move Beyond Experimenting with AI and Look for Return on Investment.

“In 2026, mid-sized manufacturers will gain ground as shifting market dynamics create new competitive operations. As a result, the next era of AI will be one of supply chain orchestration: using intelligence to vanish away data silos, unify fragmented processes, and elevate real-time insights into action. Manufacturers who connect the dots between systems, partners, and data will finally unlock AI’s full value throughout the entire enterprise, from procurement and fulfillment to finance.

“As larger, more sluggish competitors continue to rely on legacy systems, this will be the competitive edge for mid-sized manufacturers that lean on orchestrated supply chains and business process automation to move faster, scale smarter, and meet enterprise-grade expectations. This advantage comes at a time when large buyers are shifting their sourcing strategies and reshoring operations, allowing smaller organizations to step into roles that others can’t fill.

“What will separate winners from laggards in the coming year won’t be how much AI they have, but how well they use it. Given that disruption is a constant these days, speed and precision will define success. AI won’t just help manufacturers react faster — it will help them lead.”

Disney Petit, Founder & CEO of LiquiDonate

Reverse logistics will become a core enterprise tech category.

“Since COVID, the number of online retail returns has grown exponentially, and consumers who love the convenience don’t seem to be stopping any time soon. The costs and complications that come with online returns require new technologies to handle all of the detailed logistics and routing, so this sector will just continue to grow.”

Reverse logistics departments and titles will become a standard part of any retail organization.

“It’s going to be just as important to have someone dedicated to your retail returns strategy as it is to your marketing, sales, and operations. In some categories, returns can make up to 30% of all purchases. It is business critical to have someone responsible for the management of returns and reverse logistics.”

Being sustainable will go from more expensive to more cost-effective.

“Many retailers have delayed making more sustainable operations and continued landfilling because of the costs. However, with the introduction of new EPR and DPP initiatives, being overtly wasteful or using environmentally un-friendly materials will result in fines, some upwards of $50,000 per day. Some of these requirements begin as early as 2027, forcing operational shifts in 2026.”

Michael Ramsey, GVP of Product Management, CRM, and Industry Workflows at ServiceNow

From “Customer 360” to Business Value 365.

“For decades, CRM has promised a ‘360-degree view’ of the customer, but in 2026, that view isn’t enough. The companies pulling ahead aren’t just collecting customer data; they’re using it to create measurable business outcomes. Autonomous CRM will move from static records of past interactions to dynamic systems that anticipate what customers want next and act on it. AI agents will connect data across every workflow, from sales and service to marketing and operations, to deliver insights that drive retention, expansion, and profitability.

“Instead of dashboards filled with vanity metrics, CX leaders will prove impact by using governed customer insights to power AI models that predict churn, automate renewals, and personalize experiences at an unprecedented scale. The real differentiator won’t be how much data you have, but how well your CRM turns that data into measurable growth.”

The rise of true service automation.

“In 2026, service finally becomes self-driving. What began as “proactive support” will mature into true service automation where predictive AI, event-driven workflows, and connected systems collaborate to detect, decide, and act without human intervention. Imagine a telco rerouting network traffic before a customer ever experiences an outage, or a logistics firm automatically rescheduling delayed shipments across carriers. These are examples of an ecosystem that understands intent, context, and consequence well enough to solve problems before they become service events.

“2026 will also mark a turning point. Companies that rush to automate without cleaning up knowledge bases or fixing their foundations to unify data and integrate legacy apps will find that automation amplifies the chaos. According to Forrester, up to 40 percent of organizations will miss their cost-reduction targets, and a few may even seek recourse from vendors as expectations outpace their readiness.

“For the companies that take a disciplined approach by defining narrow use cases, modernizing infrastructure, and closing data gaps, service will become a measurable source of value. Human agents will remain essential, but their role will evolve toward empathy, judgment, and relationship stewardship—the work machines can’t replicate.”

Intelligence becomes the connective tissue of every customer moment.

“In 2026, CRM will move from a static system of record to a dynamic system of action where intelligence will stop living inside isolated tools and start connecting every customer moment. Each conversation, transaction, and interaction will add context that makes the next one smarter; not just for a single team, but for the entire organization.

“CRM will be expected to link these insights in real-time. When sales closes a deal, marketing learns which messages landed. When service resolves an issue, product and operations adapt instantly. Every function will draw from the same continuously expanding understanding of the customer. This is how companies will finally move beyond fragmented experiences. Intelligence will no longer sit in reports or dashboards; it will circulate through workflows, guiding decisions as they happen. The result is a business that learns as fast as its customers move. The companies that lead in 2026 won’t just use AI to predict behavior. They’ll use it to connect people, teams, and actions around what the customer needs next.”

Cassius Rhue, VP of Customer Experience at SIOS Technology

DevOps teams will increasingly integrate high availability clustering into application planning to reduce deployment risk.

“Clustering tools with robust APIs, automation hooks, and real-time observability will allow rapid updates without interrupting production services. DevOps engineers will use clusters to test patches against active workloads, reducing the risk and degree of change. HA becomes a built-in feature of the delivery process—not an afterthought.”

High Availability Focuses on Ease of Use to Meet Growing IT Admin Needs.

“As IT administrators and generalists are given increasing responsibility for managing complex high availability (HA) application environments, the demand for intuitive, automated HA solutions will surge. In 2026, IT teams will favor platforms that do not require specialized HA skills, minimize manual configuration, and simplify cluster management. Vendors that prioritize ease of use, automation, and guided workflows will stand out as the market evolves toward accessibility for non-specialist admins.”

Jason Roberson, Industry Value Expert, Aerospace & Defense at Dassault Systèmes

AI Will Become the Operating System of Space, While AR/VR Takes Off.

“AI has already launched the next era of space innovation, but the year ahead will see it embedded into almost every layer of the ecosystem, powering everything from spacecraft design and manufacturing on Earth to autonomous servicing and traffic management in orbit. In this new era, AI infrastructure for space will continue to expand to enable AI as both the brains and the blueprints of space, guiding satellites in orbit, optimizing how we build them, and teaching humans how to better repair or operate them remotely.

“We can expect development of AI-driven collision avoidance systems and autonomous space traffic control to emerge as critical safeguards against rising orbital congestion, helping satellites predict, maneuver, and coordinate in real-time to keep space safe and sustainable. We are at the beginning of true autonomous space operations, where intelligent systems make real-time decisions faster and safer than humans can.

“At the same time, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) will redefine how humans interact with machines in orbit. Engineers and astronauts will utilize immersive visualization to assemble components, rehearse complex maneuvers, and collaborate with AI co-pilots in real-time. Together, AI and AR/VR will form the digital command center of space.”

Ben Rothman, Vice President of CX at Rightpoint

“The next wave of digital experience won’t live on websites. It will be AIphemeral: a real‑time web created by AI, unique to every moment, and gone when its purpose is done. Instead of static pages and predefined journeys, AIphemeral experiences assemble on demand, generating personalized interfaces for every intent, including buying, searching, or seeking support. It’s a living web that adapts to need rather than waiting to be found.

“This shift redefines what the internet is made of. Where today’s web is built from code and content management systems, the AIphemeral Web is built from inference and intent. It fuses what were once distinct layers (i.e., CMS, analytics, and personalization) into a single, adaptive intelligence that listens, builds, and responds in real-time. For marketers and technologists, this is a shift in what we optimize for. Success is no longer about clicks or traffic but about intent, relevance, and visibility within generative environments. The brands that win will be the ones that design for discovery and action in the AI layer, not just the browser.”

Brad Rumph, Field CTO of Tines

Agentic AI will redefine IT operations next year, evolving from task execution to orchestrating systems that think and act independently.

“As autonomous systems become the backbone to enterprise operations, IT professionals will shift from simply doing the work to guiding and governing the work. They’ll begin to oversee fleets of intelligent agents executing across cloud, security, and infrastructure layers, blending a new skill set of deep technical fluency with the ability to design systems that are explainable, auditable, and adaptable. The result will be a new generation of IT professionals equipped to guide autonomy rather than compete with it.”

Agentic AI will scale operations, but only disciplined foundations will stand. 2026 will show who built on concrete and who built on sand.

“Agentic AI arrived in 2025, promising operational breakthroughs, but as 2026 unfolds, only teams with disciplined foundations will capture the benefits. Without strong processes, IT workflows can collapse under the weight of bad data, weak security, and a lack of human oversight. Small integration gaps will develop into systemic weaknesses, creating blind spots, data mismatches, and compliance risks. The real winners will pair automation with discipline, building resilient systems that can adapt as fast as AI evolves. In the AI era, speed without control is just a faster way to fail.”

Tim Sanders, Chief Innovation Officer at G2

Enterprise mega-budgets will expand the AI agents market.

“In 2026, more than 35 percent of enterprise companies will have budgets of $5 million or more for agents, encompassing software, services, and staffing. About 10 percent of enterprise companies will allocate $10 million or more for agents, especially as their workflows mature and they grow through increased efficiencies.

“In our latest report, we documented enterprise spending on agents across industries, along with an 83 percent satisfaction rate with their performance to date. Interviews revealed a growing desire to expand use cases and invest even more in data and talent. This points to another blockbuster year for agents, likely pushing them past the 40 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) projected by research firms such as markets.us.”

The AI orchestration market will explode.

“We predict that the AI orchestration market will triple in size by 2027 to more than $30 billion. All signs point to increased enterprise reliance on multi-agent systems to boost action accuracy and outcome quality. However, this will require greater investment in AI orchestration as agents cross boundaries and platforms. Agents will also need tight orchestration with robotic process automation (RPA) systems and data repositories to maximize efficiency.

“Recently, G2 launched the AI Orchestration category, which most sources estimate as a $10–11 billion market. Expect this software category to grow rapidly as enterprises seek conductor-like solutions to bring together many moving parts. While some market research firms project a $30 billion market by 2030, developments strongly suggest it will reach that size three years ahead of schedule. Orchestration emerged as a top-three priority among our technology interviewees — and for some, a growing concern. Our report also revealed that more than half of the companies’ agents were messaging other agents outside their platforms or systems. This points to rapid expansion in agent-to-agent (A2A) and Model Context Protocol (MCP) adoption, along with related service offerings.”

Agent builder platforms will expand their lead over in-house builds.

“By 2027, agent builder platforms will widen their lead over in-house builds, growing from a 3:1 ratio to 5:1. This shift will result from in-house build programs delivering disappointing total cost of ownership (TCO), coupled with a high failure rate.

“Platforms such as Agentforce, ServiceNow, and Copilot are advancing in skill offerings, outcome quality, and time-to-value. Our report found that in-house builds ranked last in terms of satisfaction, time-to-value, quality of actions, and ease of use. Notably, almost one in four in-house launches produced no meaningful outcomes in the first year. While it makes sense on paper to control your own data and destiny by building an internal agentic system, in practice, it’s challenging to staff and keep up with the industry’s rapid pace of change. This is good news for incumbent SaaS giants, as more than two-thirds are expected to offer agent builder platform capabilities by 2027.”

Deepak Singh, Chief Innovation Officer of Adeptia

AI Agents Become the New Enterprise “User,” and They’ll Transform How Companies Automate

“Enterprise software won’t just serve humans, it will also support a new class of users: AI agents acting on behalf of teams, partners, and customers. These agents will configure, trigger, and monitor automations with minimal human involvement, shifting organizations toward a true “set it and forget it” model. As companies deploy their own agents to boost productivity and customer experience, platforms like Adeptia will become the behind-the-scenes infrastructure these digital workers rely on to execute data tasks instantly and accurately.”

First-Mile Data Becomes AI’s New Power Source in 2026

“Enterprises will realize that AI’s real leverage point isn’t the model—it’s the First-Mile Data flowing into it: the messy, inconsistent information arriving from customers, partners, brokers, and legacy systems. As this scattered data becomes the biggest obstacle to the accuracy of automation and AI, organizations will shift their attention upstream. The priority will be to normalize and enrich incoming data before it reaches AI workflows. And companies that get it right will see faster operations, more dependable AI outputs, and a dramatically smoother path to true AI-driven transformation.”

Enterprises Hit Pause on Legacy Migrations and Unlock Value Through AI-Ready Integrations

“Enterprises will rethink costly ‘lift-and-shift’ migrations and instead focus on modernizing legacy systems through smarter integration layers. As AI-native tools collide with non-native, decades-old systems and processes, the industry will realize that modernization doesn’t require ripping anything out. By wrapping legacy platforms with APIs and AI-ready connectors, organizations can expose hard-to-reach data, preserve proven business logic, and experiment with AI and automation faster, bridging the gap between legacy reliability and next-generation intelligence.”

Industry-Specific AI and Vertical SaaS Will Outpace Horizontal Platforms in 2026

“Enterprises will accelerate their shift away from broad, horizontal SaaS tools toward verticalized platforms and AI models built for the nuances of their industry. These specialized systems will deliver smarter automation, faster performance, and lower compute costs by focusing on tightly defined data patterns and workflows, far outperforming one-size-fits-all solutions. As proprietary data and domain-specific intelligence become competitive differentiators, companies will favor platforms that understand their business out of the box rather than forcing customization on generic tools.”

Dustin Snell, SVP of Agentic Solutions at Automation Anywhere

Agentic AI Will Evolve Into Real-Time Self-Generating Intelligence

“Next year, agentic AI will shift away from static chatbot experiences and begin functioning as real-time, auto-generated intelligence software. Systems will dynamically create user interfaces, adapt workflows to changing intent, and generate structured, context-aware flows on the fly. Enterprises will increasingly seek AI that incorporates governance, guardrails, and oversight. This is the next stage of Agentic AI: software that not only understands what a user wants but instantly builds the tools, screens, and logic required to get it done.”

Software Development Will Become the First Workflow Fully Handed Off to Agents

“AI agents will eat enterprise software, just not in one bite. In 2026, the first place we will see this happen is in the mechanical side of software creation. The repetitive, pattern-based work, such as scaffolding, wiring integrations, stitching APIs, building test harnesses, and producing initial documentation, aligns perfectly with what agentic systems are becoming increasingly capable of doing on their own. Developers will still lead on design and creative problem solving, but the tedious layers of engineering will shift almost entirely to agents. As these capabilities advance, developers will see 10 to 30 times higher output and will redirect their time toward architecture and innovation. What once took months or years will be built in a fraction of the time because AI will not simply assist development; it will perform it.”

Intelligent Robots Will Bring the Productivity Boom Into the Physical World

“The massive productivity gains happening in software engineering will soon extend into physical industries. Intelligent robots, including humanoid and non-humanoid form factors, will begin performing real-world tasks with AI-level precision. Early on, companies may use these efficiencies to boost profits rather than cut costs, but competitive pressure will eventually drive prices down. As AI-powered robots learn to build, maintain, and operate real infrastructure, the speed of progress in the physical world will start to mirror the acceleration we have already seen in software.”

Lisa Spira, VP of Content Intelligence at Persado

AI will upend how people discover information and decide what to buy.

“Systems like Google are now in direct competition with their own customers—enterprises—for attention. Marketers will need to pivot their content creation approaches to meet their customers where they are, rather than relying on traditional content funnels.

Generative AI has introduced a new audience dichotomy: those who trust it, those who don’t, and those who may not realize the content they’re engaging with was created by AI at all. Each group represents a distinct opportunity and responsibility for enterprise marketers.

“In 2026, the differentiator will be using generative AI intelligently to reach each of these segments in a way that gains their trust. This can take the shape of transparency, where brands acknowledge and demonstrate how AI contributes to content creation to build trust and credibility. However, it can also mean explaining how AI interacts with data to make informed content decisions, emphasizing how LLMs are a key component of a more complex decision-making ecosystem. For other audiences, when the key differentiator is producing the most relevant, on-brand content that meets their marketing KPIs, simplicity will be the best route.”

Danny Thompson, Chief Product Officer at apexanalytix

Changes in enterprise software for finance, supplier management, and audit.

“In 2026, enterprise supplier management and audit software will require a focus on interoperability and intelligence to be successful. The next generation of solutions won’t just respond to inputs but will anticipate user needs, prepare data or actions before they’re requested, and even collaborate across systems to resolve issues automatically. The platforms that are built to connect will allow enterprises to assemble seamless portfolios of capabilities that fit their specific needs.

“Simultaneously, bidirectional, agentic AI that embeds intelligent agents and allows external agents to interact with internal systems will help organizations execute tasks autonomously. Coupled with software that’s increasingly configurable through natural language rather than development cycles, this shift allows users to design workflows, dashboards, and automations instantly, unlocking a new era of agility and precision in enterprise operations.”

Most influential AI-Driven features in 2026.

“The most influential AI-driven features that will impact supplier and management workflows in 2026 include natural language interaction, AI agents, and predictive precision. Natural language will become the primary way users engage with systems, replacing dashboards and menus with conversational commands. Intelligent agents that bridge applications will automate the bulk of transactional and administrative work that humans handle day-to-day. And, predictive analytics will evolve from directional insights to accurate foresight, giving finance and compliance leaders a real-time, data-driven edge in planning, detection, and response.”

Zahra Timsah, Ph.D., CEO of i-GENTIC

AI Agents Will Become Operational Participants

“Leaders want agents that behave in ways they can measure and trust. When an agent produces a clear, auditable work product, teams begin to treat it as a reliable operational participant rather than a novelty. This involvement in structured workflows signals a move toward consistent, reviewable tasks that align with real operational cycles.”

Context Will Become the Differentiator in Agent Performance

“Agents become dependable when they can interpret the organization’s real context. Teams gain confidence when results reflect their data models, workflows, and policies rather than approximations. Enterprises are prioritizing connectors, metadata access, and structured integration rather than standalone model performance.”

Automated Oversight Becomes a Baseline Requirement

“Oversight must run at the same pace as the agents themselves. Companies want transparent reasoning and consistent reporting because these elements build trust across the enterprise. Continuous review and clear audit trails are becoming standard requirements.”

Igor Uroic, Partner at The Alexander Group

The Future Role of AI in Marketing

“In 2026, AI will play a bigger role in audience targeting and creative development, but it will not replace human judgment. Machine learning can identify new segments and produce content at scale; however, advertisers will still need human refinement to make their campaigns truly resonate. For instance, smaller advertisers will increasingly utilize AI-generated creative and data-driven segmentation to effectively reach niche audiences at a lower cost. This strategy will accelerate as budgets tighten and competition for attention intensifies. However, human insight will be the key to ensuring quality and relevance. The balance of technology and human creativity will be the catalyst for driving better engagement and unlocking new revenue opportunities in a changing media landscape.”

Cameron van Orman, Chief Strategy, Marketing Officer, and GM of Automotive Solutions at Planview

RIP Agile, Hello Product-Oriented Transformation

“2026 is the year that agile transformations cease to exist – and for good reason! In its place, organizations will turn to hybrid, flexible, and modern ways of working. The prophecies of agile and output optimization will increasingly be substituted for product-oriented operating models focused on tangible outcomes.”

Peter White, CPO of Agentic Solutions at Automation Anywhere

In the age of AI, trust will remain essential, but will not be transformational.

“Trust will remain a foundational requirement for enterprise AI in 2026, but it will not become the dramatic new battleground some predict. Customers will continue to expect responsible training data, strong security, and clear auditability, and those expectations will stay relatively stable. Companies that meet these standards will maintain credibility, while those that do not will fall behind. Trust is the new standard, not the next major innovation.”

Moving AI from pilot to scale will reveal new gaps.

“As enterprises expand their AI deployments, the biggest surprises will appear only when these systems meet real users. No lab environment can fully replicate the variability of thousands of people interacting with an agent across different workflows, data conditions, and edge cases. Once scaled, organizations will uncover reliability gaps, performance issues, and unexpected behaviors that did not surface during testing. They will also face practical challenges such as increased latency, timeout risks, and computational strain. In 2026, companies will increasingly recognize that scaling AI is not a launch event but an ongoing cycle of monitoring, adjustment, and improvement.”

Automation and LLMs will remain long-term partners.

“In 2026, organizations will finally stop treating LLMs as standalone systems and begin partnering them with automated intelligence. AI leaders are building workflow tools, orchestration layers, and guardrails to support their models. This shift reinforces a core truth: the scaffolding around your LLM often matters more than the model itself. Workflows, controls, evaluation frameworks, and application-level intelligence will determine whether an AI system can operate consistently at scale.”

Pascal Yammine, CEO at Zilliant

The Agent-to-Agent Ecosystem Will Force the Collapse of the Monolithic

“Revenue Operations Suite: In 2026, CROs will reject rigid, monolithic pricing platforms in favor of an interoperable, agent-based ecosystem. The market will see a larger investment in intelligence layers that plug into existing workflows, directly where pricing decisions are made. We will see companies become more willing to allow their data and proprietary intelligence to be leveraged by agents and AI assistants to simplify their complex tech stack.”

B2B Companies Will Re-center on the Human Relationship as a Differentiator

“In a year of intense AI noise and pricing anxiety, the most successful strategies will be those that re-emphasize the value of the customer-provider relationship over simple sales transactions. Leaders must pivot from viewing sales negotiations solely as a math problem to a strategic relationship-building tool. Consistent, value-based feedback loops and a ‘trusted partner’ approach—especially when delivering AI-informed price adjustments—will become the core defense against price-fixing and buyer weariness.”

Augmentation Agents Will Define the 2026 AI ROI, Deferring Autonomy

“In 2026, the primary ROI use case for AI in pricing and sales will be Augmentation Agents that suggest intelligent considerations or optimize workflows, not fully autonomous decision-making. The market will settle on agents handling intermediate steps, such as streamlining approvals or suggesting workflow or output revisions. Full autonomy will be constrained by the lack of human-level trust and accountability, meaning the ‘human-in-the-loop’ will remain a requirement for all strategic business decisions. Companies need to focus on delivering business outcomes—if the focus isn’t on what you’re doing to improve your business or your customer’s business, then the rest is just noise.”

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