10 executives shared their AI predictions for 2026 with us

John Stecher oversees Blackstone technology and various parts of the investment industry. He shared three major AI predictions with Business Insider for the new year.

The first is that there will be an “acceleration” of the adoption of AI in business. He said large companies have been slower to adopt AI than small and medium-sized businesses, and 2026 will bring “deep adoption” of AI tools that improve productivity in large companies.

“I think it will boost the productivity of the entire workforce,” Stecher said. “Up from today.”

Stecher’s second prediction is data-centric. He said data quality – and its cleanliness – would become a growing priority and he expected companies to invest more in this area.

His third prediction is an increased focus on cybersecurity, as identity-based attacks become harder to identify and intellectual property becomes harder to protect.

Aruna Ravichandran, head of Cisco, predicted that 2026 would bring “connected intelligence” to the workplace, which she describes as people, data and digital workers working together.

“In this new era, collaboration is frictionless. Digital workers anticipate needs, coordinate tasks in the background and resolve problems before they arise,” said Ravichandran.

Guy Diedrich, Global Head of Innovation at Ciscotold Business Insider that in 2026 he expects to see more discussions about the AI-driven economy and interactions between humans and machines. He added that more attention would be paid to combining technical expertise with “specifically human skills”.

“This shift will rebalance priorities, with more emphasis on strengthening cognitive muscles through ethical judgment, cultural intelligence and critical thinking – all classic skills in the humanities,” Diedrich said.

One of the key trends that Joe Depa, EY global director of innovation, expects to see in 2026 is a shift towards humans supervising more AI agents and robots. He said it is people who will define the vision, while AI agents and robots will take care of the execution.

“You’re going to have to orchestrate the agents, train them, audit them, retire them as new agents come in and new bots come in,” Depa said. “And so that’s an area where I think new skills are going to be developed.”

Depa added that adaptability will become the new job security in 2026.

“Jobs will continue to evolve very quickly,” Depa said, adding that “the ability to adapt and change will be the most important element.”

Tim Armstrong, CEO of Flowcode and former CEO of AOL, shared several AI-related predictions with Business Insider. Among them: advertising prices will “go vertical” and become “exponentially” more expensive, even if returns on investment improve.

He added that ads will need to evolve, similar to how AI has led the search engine to evolve into a “response engine.”

As for the AI ​​companies themselves? There will be winners and losers.

“A giant AI company will be wiped out,” the dot-com bubble veteran said.

In turn, another company will recoup some of this overinvestment and benefits.

“The roller coaster is going up right now and it will eventually come down and turn into an exciting adventure with a happy ending,” he said. “But make sure your seat belt is fastened properly.”

IBM’s Joanne Wright said she expects companies to move away from AI hype and focus on measuring AI’s ROI.

“It may sound simple, but it requires constant focus across the entire business,” Wright said.

The executive said AI success requires strong leadership and a workforce encouraged and equipped to rethink how they work with AI.

“Top-down sponsorship and bottom-up empowerment are absolutely essential,” Wright said.

Billionaire Mark Cuban predicted that in 2026, videos would become longer, with few options for character continuity. He also said he expects to see more intellectual property siled to protect it from being tampered with.

This intellectual property “will be auctioned off to the founding models who pay the most,” Cuban said.

By the end of 2026, the billionaire also predicts that “at least one of the founding models” will warn that it could face cash flow shortfalls in the short term.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake told Business Insider that 2026 will bring more advancements in agentic AI, or AI that operates autonomously.

He said users will reach a point where they can access more information from AI “without needing a complicated dashboard.” Currently, he said, the tools take natural language questions and translate them into SQL queries or dashboards. Next year, he expects this process to become smoother.

This may look like a model telling you that not only is revenue down 3%, but it also includes information about customers and regions where it appears to have declined, Ramaswamy said.

Ramaswamy also expects to see an increase in automation of the company’s standard workflows next year. This means that routine tasks, such as paying bills or carrying out legal checks, will become increasingly automated.

The CEO of Thumbtack, a home services marketplace, told Business Insider that AI will “drive an explosion of new tools and offerings for small businesses in 2026.”

He said the average small business still uses surprisingly little software because existing tools are typically designed for large businesses, making them ill-suited and overly complicated.

“AI will enable a new wave of tools tailor-made for the needs of SMEs,” Zappacosta said.

Oliver Jenkyn, Chairman of Visa Groupreleased a prediction for 2026 note who highlighted several expectations in the area of ​​payments. His first: agent payments will become commonplace, with consumers increasingly relying on AI to make purchasing decisions for them.

“In 2026, AI-driven shopping will become very real for all of us, and agent commerce will naturally follow,” Jenkyn writes in the note. “Imagine opening your ChatGPT app, but now there’s a new button: ‘Buy for me’.”

Jenkyn also predicted a “significant increase in the sophistication and volume” of AI-based identity attacks.

“As much as I’m excited about AI, the bad guys have access to the same technology,” Jenkyn told Business Insider.