Five Things AI: Predictions for 2026
Everything you need to know about AI at the beginning of 2026. Really.
Heya and welcome back to Five Things AI!
The new year has just started and of course everybody will be doing predictions about AI in 2026.
I don’t know what you predicted for 2025, but I didn’t have the data-center rush on my bingo card. Somehow I just assumed that these data-centers will be build everywhere, but not at this scale and with so much spending-power behind it.
For 2026, I am very bullish about Agentic AI, as I have been in 2025 as well. On a personal level, I am still awestruck how AI has changed software development and therefore product development. I spent the last few days building stuff with Google’s Antigravity and in the first time after almost 20 years I am building software products again. And of course I am not coding the stuff myself, I am just designing the product and telling the machine what to code. This is of course so much faster and cheaper than writing briefs for developers, it really is insane. And nobody complains when I have this really cool idea a few days into the project and basically throw away everything and start all over again… We are moving into the era of software on demand.
Remember: we are changing the way Five Things AI work from now on. I am reading hundreds of articles a month on AI and here I picked out the five articles from last week that help you understand AI better. Paid users will also get my analysis and my thoughts on the most important aspects of these articles.
Enjoy this edition of Five Things AI!
How AI shook the world in 2025 and what comes next
This year, thousands of tech workers were left jobless as a wave of layoffs swept the industry. Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, among other tech companies, made significant cuts to their staff, driven at least in part by AI.
Amazon laid off 14,000 corporate employees in October in an effort to operate more leanly in the age of AI. Meta let 600 workers go from its AI division, following an earlier hiring spree, so that it, too, could be more nimble.
Some believe AI will lead to more layoffs, while others say it’ll create fresh opportunities.
But one thing is certain: More change is coming.
Oh yes, indeed, more change is coming. For many employees, this change will be hard to sugarcode: they will get fired. Some will reinvent themselves, most don’t. I am certain that small companies will benefit tremendously from these changes as they can really boost their productivity with Agentic AI systems.
17 predictions for AI in 2026
We don’t believe AI is a bubble on the verge of popping, but neither do we think we’re close to a “fast takeoff” driven by the invention of artificial general intelligence. Rather, we expect models to continue improving their capabilities — but we think it will take a while for the full impact to be felt across the economy.
And while I wonder why someone would pick the number 17 for the 2026 predictions on AI, I do think that these 17 predictions present a pretty good selection of topics that will be important this year.
The Enshittifinancial Crisis
It’s times like this where it’s necessary to make the point that there is absolutely “enough money” to end hunger or build enough affordable housing or have universal healthcare, but they would be “too expensive” or “not profitable enough,” despite having a blatant and obvious economic benefit in that more people would have happier, better lives and — if you must see the world in purely reptilian senses — enable many more people to have disposable income and the means of entering the economy on even terms.
By contrast, investments in AI do not appear to be driving much economic growth at all, other than in the revenue driven to NVIDIA from selling these GPUs, and the construction of data centers themselves. Had Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon sunk $776 billion into building housing and renting it out, the world would be uneven, we would have horrible new landlords, and it would still be a great deal better than one where nearly a trillion dollars is being wasted propping up a broken, doomed industry, all because the people in charge are fucking idiots obsessed with growth.
Oh, this is an interesting and very long read. If you haven’t guessed it already, the author doesn’t really have the brightest outlook for the future of AI.
AI paradoxes: 5 contradictions to watch in 2026 and why AI’s future isn’t straightforward
There is much talk of an AI bubble as the world anxiously watches the global economy, with unprecedented spending on AI infrastructure, but the enthusiasm to adopt AI and get ahead in the AI race remains an almost universally shared priority for 2026.
As the technology evolves at a pace, disrupting established sectors and creating new business models, many experts are calling for a focus on systems that bring long-term benefits, although an adversarial geopolitical context makes this hard to achieve at the global level.
I actually think that these contradictions are inherit in most technologies, especially when they are fairly new and everyone is still trying to figure out what this all means.
Agentic AI Takes Over 11 Shocking 2026 Predictions
As we look toward 2026, we must realize that AI isn’t a layer we add to systems, it’s becoming the infrastructure itself.
In 2026, AI will move with us as a constant co-worker and teammate. Agentic and multi-agent AI systems will manage entire workflows once controlled by humans, while humanoid and physical robotics advance from demonstrations to targeted pilots in factories, warehouses, and labs marking the dawn of Physical AI.
This is the big change we will all personally experience. And then we will take it very much for granted as soon as we have made the switch to Agentic AI systems.
