A year in tech can feel like a decade elsewhere.
Think about it: a year ago we were discussing that ChatGPT wasn’t able to count the number of “r”s in “strawberry”. Reasoning models from Chinese border laboratories (such as DeepSeek-R1) hadn’t taken the world by storm, and neither had open source reasoning agents.
Claude’s dedicated coding agent didn’t exist yet. IBM Granite 3.0 had just arrived. And the conversation between agents was just beginning: MCP had just gained ground in the spring, with a notable endorsement by Sam Altman.
Meanwhile, in the infrastructure world, chips and computing resources were become raregiving new territories a competitive advantage.
Over the past few weeks, IBM thinks spoke with a dozen technology experts—researchers, founders, and executives from IBM and beyond—to get their thoughts on what to expect in the year ahead. Everyone shared a common belief for the year ahead: the pace of innovation will not slow down in 2026.
“It’s such a crazy time,” said Peter Staar, a senior research staff member at the IBM Research Zurich lab. IBM thinks in an interview. “And it’s only getting faster.”
New agentic capabilities will open up new possibilities for both businesses and individuals. “I really see the parallels between music production Rick Rubin style with AI creation,” said IBM Distinguished Engineer Chris Hay. IBM thinks. “I don’t limit myself to coding. I think we will all become AI composers, whether you are a marketer, programmer, or PM.”
Many believe that efficiency will be the new frontier. “GPUs will remain king, but ASIC-based acceleratorschipset designs, analog inference and even quantum-assisted optimizers will mature,” Kaoutar El Maghraoui, a senior research scientist at IBM, said at this week’s conference. Expert Mix. “Perhaps a new class of chips for agentic workloads will emerge.”
After much skepticism about AI’s ROI, AI’s capabilities will pave the way for new ways of doing business in the enterprise. And open source reasoning models and agents will continue to push the boundaries to conquer enterprise AI.
At the same time, trust and security will become key priorities as many companies focus more on AI sovereignty.
This is just the first act of what’s to come in business technology in the days to come. Read on to discover 18 expert predictions to watch in 2026.