AI and robotics are headed for an important year. Following rapid advances in agentic systems, embedded intelligence, and enterprise automation, 2026 will be defined less by experimentation and more by proving what works in the real world.
We spoke to AI, robotics, software and cloud industry leaders to find out what the trends will be over the next 12 months, from purpose-built agents and autonomous workflows to the integration of robots in the real world and the growing demand for governance and trust.
1. This will be a year of assimilation, not innovation.
Mark Roberts, Head of AI Future Labs, Capgemini: “2026 is the moment of truth for AI. After years of headlines, investment and experimentation, the mood is changing: innovation theater is giving way to a more mature focus on real, practical deployment. This year will be defined by integration rather than invention, weaving AI into the fabric of organizations and delivering measurable value.
“We are also moving away from the idea that scale alone guarantees progress. Yes, larger models matter, but the future is hybrid: combining foundation models with classical AI, simulations, engineering models, and world models to keep systems grounded in reality.
“Ethics needs equal treatment. It can no longer be a philosophical principle; in 2026 it becomes an engineering discipline. We need to embed ethical principles directly into systems, not only because customers demand it, but also because ethics is a specific example of a general problem, which is how do we get our AI models to do the right thing in the absence of specific training data? Solving it is fundamental to deploying AI that makes critical decisions.”
2. Energy demand will be a major hurdle for AI deployment
Vamsi Duvvuri, Technology, Media & Communications and Technology AI Leader, EY Americas: “The most significant constraint on the entire digital build-out in 2026 hinges on energy constraints. The massive computation demands for training frontier models are butting headlong into the reality of electricity and water supplies. This forces a painful calculation between unlimited technological ambition and energy policy.
“We hope this dynamic will extend the sustainability conversation to the C-suite and fundamentally reshape how providers and sectors can truly sustain AI growth as the market expects.”
3. Everyone will become a manager of AI agents
Richard Socher, CEO and Co-Founder, You.com, “Most people right now are individual contributors and are learning, ‘The harder I work, the more output I get.’ But AI will all need to learn management skills: delegating tasks with clear language, building trust, understanding when an AI is having hallucinations and yet can’t be trusted. It’s a transition from treating AI as a co-pilot to treating it as an autonomous machine that requires instruction and oversight.”
4. Embodied AI will leave the lab and enter the real world
Marina Botina, Senior AI Consultant, SoftServe, “As companies emphasize automation that adapts, not just behaves, AI will move away from screens to machines that learn through motion rather than code. Until now, AI and robots only work in perfect, controlled or virtual environments – 2026 is the first year they will learn (like humans): by trying, failing and making adjustments in real time.
“Logistics will be one of the first places where the scale of embodied and agentic AI matters. We can expect more autonomous loading and sorting robots, inspection drones, and AI systems to quietly reorder shipments and manage inventory without needing a human in the loop.”
5. The era of special agents will begin
Keith Zubachevich, President and CEO, Conviva: “Next year, organizations will stop focusing on what AI can do and start prioritizing what individual agents should accomplish. The winners will be the companies that align their AI architectures with the desired outcome: building dozens of small, specialized agents that efficiently and precisely automate one aspect of their business. Those still chasing generalization will quickly fall behind.”
6. Agent AI will make purchasing decisions directly for consumers
Kevin Greene, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Hapax: “In 2026, you’re going to be able to use natural language to ask questions about your data, and the pace of consumer adoption is going to be so fast that every functional area will have to be empowered to act on the data. Agent AI becomes critical here.
“This isn’t just a technological innovation, it’s a cultural movement enabled by technology. You can see the positive or the negative depending on your lens. When the elevator was created, there wasn’t a bellhop to operate the elevator, he was there to instill confidence: If he can ride this thing all day, I can too. But people still go up the stairs for years. Today is an elevator moment. Some people will rather take the stairs, which is slower, harder, and less efficient. Others “People will step into the elevator and trust that it is the elevator taking them to the upper floor.”
7. Enterprises will move from building AI agents to licensing them
Surojit Chatterjee, CEO and Founder, EMA: “This will be the year when enterprises stop trying to build their own AI agents and start licensing them instead. It’s impossible to ignore the economics: Companies that spent millions and 18 months on custom builds are watching competitors deploy white-label solutions in weeks. More importantly, enterprises are realizing that a single agent can’t make a real difference. They need to integrate agents seamlessly into end-to-end workflows. A network is required, which is very difficult to build and maintain in-house; 2026 is about licensing, orchestration and monetization.”
8. AI agents will become team members, not personal assistants
Matt Martin, CEO and Co-Founder, Clockwise, “In 2026, the workplace agents that will gain the most traction will be those that can work with multiple people as a team. Most AI tools today are single-player, and collaborative workflows are underdeveloped. But most work happens in group settings: in Slack channels, with comments in Google Docs, among multiple people working on problems over time. The agents that will succeed will be built for that reality, more of teammates than personal assistants.” Will do more work.,
9. Human culture will make or break the agentic future
Aditya Ganjam, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Conviva: “In 2026, the success of the agentic era will depend not only on advances in AI, but also on the human culture around it. As organizations increasingly move toward autonomous systems, it will become clear that technology alone is not the differentiator, people are. Companies that will thrive will invest in teams as well as tools, fostering cultures of experimentation, curiosity, and flexibility through trial and error.”
10. Security and compliance will be key in scaling AI
Martin Reynolds, Field CTO, Harness, “Compliance and security will shift from background concerns to central pillars of AI adoption. Organizations will face a complex regulatory landscape: EU AI Act, NIS2 And Dora Creating a more integrated framework for governance and compliance, which will demand greater transparency, risk assessment and algorithmic accountability.
“To stay ahead of compliance, forward-looking companies will adopt automated policy enforcement, continuous security scanning, and comprehensive audit capabilities. Meanwhile, companies that embed security as code, automated testing, and runtime validation into their development pipelines will reduce the risk of AI-generated code, while enabling innovation to scale safely. These trends will make 2026 the year when security and compliance will drive the future of AI.”
