At the end of each year, we look ahead and ask: what
will shape the tech landscape in the year to come? 2026 promises to
be anything but predictable. From Agentic AI to regulators
tightening their grip on digital platforms, the pace of change is
accelerating. So, what should tech leaders, boardrooms and in-house
counsel be watching as we step into 2026? Here are our top tech
predictions.
Data and Cyber
Smarter hackers, riskier AI
In 2026 ransomware will continue to be disruptive. It’s not
just organisations that are leveraging AI to enhance the efficiency
and effectiveness of operations – attackers are too. To trick
humans, there’ll be even more use of AI for social engineering
– a common method attackers use to deliver ransomware. Not
just through more realistic phishing messages, but also through
bypassing controls such as multi-factor authentication (MFA)
through impersonating users (e.g., cloning voices).
Ad-tech tightened up
Brands and their agencies will pull ad spend closer to the point
of inventory, cutting through supply chains and striking more
direct, data-collaborative deals with premium publishers to unlock
richer audience insights and performance. The winners so far have
been those who can evidence clean, consented data flows from source
to outcome, while long tail intermediaries can feel the squeeze.
Meanwhile, regulatory pressure is shifting decisively beyond
cookies and websites, with UK and EU regulators zeroing in on other
technologies and devices, such as Connected TV, pushing the market
towards accountable, consented first party data and privacy
preserving targeting and measurement.
AI risk and tech regulation
Governance under pressure: the agentic AI
challenge
In 2026, we expect more organisations to move beyond AI
chat-based interfaces to embedding agentic AI into core operations,
with autonomous agents executing increasingly complex, multi step
workflows such as consolidated data reconciliation, end to end
invoice management, dynamic compliance monitoring, inventory
management, proactive customer triage and more. As agent creation
is democratised and accelerated by ‘vibe coding’, a wave of
unmanaged agents will emerge, often bypassing traditional user
interfaces altogether.
Expect a spotlight on security discussions, which will shift to a
new frontier as indirect prompt injection, poisoned retrieval
sources, and agent to agent exploits make identity, logging, and
provenance by design a key consideration. The scale and speed of
deployment will also test governance and operating models, placing
CTOs and boardrooms under heightened scrutiny to implement clearer
guardrails, accountability frameworks, and operational
oversight.
AI gets classified, and the acronyms
multiply
By the end of 2026, the jargon will have multiplied: Narrow AI
– task-specific systems like chatbots; AGI (Artificial
General Intelligence) – AI that can reason and learn like a
human across multiple domains; ASI (Artificial Superintelligence)
– a theoretical stage where machines surpass human
intelligence entirely; and Shadow AI – the unauthorised or
unmonitored use of AI tools by employees. Boards and senior
stakeholders are well advised to understand these distinctions
because regulation, risk, and monetisation will differ for each,
and the need to ensure the governance framework is both accurate
and appropriate for the AI in question.
Digital finance goes mainstream
In 2026, the UK government and the FCA will double down on
facilitating innovation and exploitation of crypto assets and
distributed ledger technology (DLT), as well as significant broader
advances in payment services, including open banking and digital
wallets. The UK’s aim is to make sure that the UK has a
world-leading payments ecosystem. The government and FCA are
aligned on achieving this – legislation and consultations are
moving at pace, shaping new regimes and clearing the path for
adoption. And yes, this could be the year when we learn if the
digital pound will be a reality.
AI sparks legal fireworks
Autonomous systems promise efficiency but raise thorny legal
questions around accountability. Disputes may arise when
algorithmic decisions lead to unintended outcomes or when ownership
of AI-generated content is contested. Courts worldwide are
grappling with whether existing frameworks can keep pace, leaving
businesses exposed to uncertainty. In 2026, expect regulators to
push for clearer liability standards and new international norms to
address cross-border AI disputes.
Immersive consumer worlds
Keeping fans hooked in the attention
economy
Sports broadcasters will fight harder for eyeballs in 2026. With
increasing volumes of entertainment content vying for our
attention, and many viewers (particularly younger viewers) now
‘second screening’, the race is on to make every match an
immersive experience – or risk losing fans to the scroll. We
have already seen a rise in the deployment of in-match virtual
advertising targeting specific geographic regions, and this may
extend further to include ads that are personalised to specific
inpidual viewers on streaming platforms.
In addition, broadcasters are experimenting with alternative feeds
aimed at specific demographics and audiences – for example,
the NFL recently broadcasted a match from a camera angle behind the
quarterback, with augmented reality overlaid graphics (to replicate
the gameplay of the popular Madden video games), and has for a
number of years collaborated with children’s TV broadcasters to
create augmented feeds, including characters from SpongeBob
SquarePants and Disney movies.
Agentic AI redefines brand engagement
In 2026, your first interaction with a brand might be with an AI
agent, not a human. Consumers increasingly delegate shopping and
decision-making to intelligent assistants that understand their
preferences and values. Winning brands aren’t just designing
for people anymore – they’re designing for algorithms,
ensuring that their identity and ethics are legible to software in
an AI agent-focused world.
Hyper-personalised AI ads dominate
Advertising in 2026 will be about real-time personalisation.
Generative AI now creates bespoke campaigns tailored to inpidual
preferences, moods, and reacting to real-time social listening. But
from 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act requires that certain
AI-generated content be clearly disclosed, forcing brands to
rethink how they balance transparency with a seamless user
experience. The winners will be those who turn compliance into a
trust-building advantage, using clear labelling to reinforce
authenticity and ethical engagement.
Ads go fully immersive
With AR glasses and VR platforms becoming part of everyday life,
advertising has gone fully immersive. Brands are placing
interactive ads in virtual worlds and holographic campaigns in
physical spaces. The race is on to measure consumer engagement and
to avoid “ad fatigue” in these new environments.
People and workplace transformation
Future@Work: AI meets human capital
Our annual Future@Work Report reveals a paradox. Tech
firms lead in AI deployment, combining high confidence with fast
implementation. At the same time, this position leaves them more
exposed than most to the volatility shaping the wider tech
ecosystem. Tech employers have recognised that the biggest
constraint on scaling AI isn’t tooling but human capability,
prompting a decisive shift toward meaningful work, purpose-led
workplace cultures, and the creation of new specialist roles. Those
who are likely to thrive in 2026 are the firms that balance speed
with foresight and pair technological investment with deeper
investment in people.
Under attack from more angles
As organisations integrate AI into operations, the cyber-attack
surface will widen. In particular, expect to see a proliferation of
AI-specific attacks, especially prompt injection, where AI is
tricked into bypassing security and instead follows attackers’
hidden commands. Increased use of agentic workflows will introduce
more risk. Not just by external attackers looking to streamline and
scale attacks, but also internally by employees using unapproved,
autonomous agents (‘shadow AI agents’) for work
purposes.
Immigration rules tighten the talent
pipeline
Senior tech professionals will likely be delighted by the
proposed changes to settlement in the UK, as anyone with a taxable
income over £125,140 p.a. may be able to settle after three
years rather than five. However, those who have any character
issues, or engineers on lower salaries, could have to wait ten
years or more. It’s also expected that adult dependants will
need to meet taxable income and other eligibility criteria for
settlement in their own right. This, along with raised skill and
salary levels could make the usual ability to hire who you want,
when you want, significantly harder within the tech world.
Deals, growth and automation
Big bets return in 2026
2025 was certainly volatile in most markets, including M&A
and particularly on cross-border transactions. It’s difficult
to suggest that 2026 will be different, but we are beginning to see
some evidence of a recovery, led by larger, strategically targeted
transactions. We anticipate that this will filter down into the
smaller transactions and the scale-up space.
For many years tech has been the accepted horizontal; this is now
dominated by AI and those businesses supporting that technology.
Take chips: the largely unloved technology supporting the digital
ecosystem historically overlooked in favour of the devices on which
they run and the services they support. ChatGPT launched late in
2022, Nvidia’s share price tripled and is now one of the
world’s most valuable companies.
As companies sharpen their focus on AI, we anticipate internal
restructurings, accelerating disposals of legacy assets and
creating a pipeline of spinouts with credible turnaround potential.
AI remains the mot du jour at every stage of the transaction
lifecycle, not only in terms of target identification and due
diligence but also integration. Verticals could be in defence, cold
storage and housing servers, but frankly these are simply examples.
With private equity sitting on significant unspent capital and
financing conditions improving as interest rates ease, we expect
larger deals to be forthcoming.
Contracts go click
To meet company revenue growth objectives, in-house legal teams
know that collaboration with business teams is key. The core
contracts of a company that enable growth are no longer untouchable
and confusing to stakeholders – they have been redrafted and
designed to ensure that sales, procurement, marketing and other
business teams can understand and engage with them. Manual
population of standard contracts is also a thing of the past
– core contracts have been automated so that business teams
can efficiently complete them within safe guardrails and without
legal involvement. This streamlined contracting process will
continue to save time for in-house legal teams and empower business
teams to move faster with their deals.
RaaS becomes the startup’s scale engine
In 2026, cash conscious start-up’s and midsized innovators
will turn to Robotics as a Service (Raas) to scale operations
without heavy investment or long deployment cycles. They gain
access to automation integrated with cloud-based control and
predictive maintenance, all through a single subscription model.
The winners are those that secure RaaS on smart terms, tying fees
to performance, locking in uptime, and ring fencing data and IP,
while avoiding being locked into immature tech.
Frontier Technologies
Robotaxis hit the road
Autonomous vehicles may finally shift from concept to curb in
2026, with the launch of the first commercial pilots of fully
autonomous passenger services on UK public roads . This
fast-tracked deployment of ‘robotaxis’ is enabled by the
Automated Vehicles Act 2024 and aims to position the UK as a global
leader in AV technology. The rest of the year will see rapidly
developing regulation under the Act in preparation for full
implementation in 2027, with the focus firmly on safety and
accessibility, and which is set to generate an opportunity that the
Government estimates to be worth up to £42 billion by
2035.
Neurotechnology
In 2026, neurotech will cross from moonshot to market, propelled
by clearer regulatory pathways and increased investment. This tech
uses information taken directly from the brain to predict, diagnose
and treat complex physical and mental illnesses, as well as
understanding emotions, preferences and cognition. Successful use
cases range from the more familiar cochlear implants for hearing
restoration to deep brain stimulation for movement disorders and
brain-computer interfaces (BCI) for paralysis, using thought to
control prosthetic limbs or achieving near-natural conversational
speed by decoding speech brain signals into sentences in real time.
Neurodata is highly sensitive in nature and has attracted
regulatory scrutiny around the world, as well as interest from
innovators keen to unlock its potential. Strong data governance
will be essential for anyone looking to develop this tech in this
field.
Quantum’s long game
Tech industry worries about a quantum computing business bubble
will abate, likely more quickly than concerns about AI. By the end
of 2025, analysts were pointing to comparable dangers in the
quantum and AI sectors, and modest revenue projections by start-ups
with multibillion-dollar valuations. However, cool heads should
prevail to help distinguish AI companies from quantum ventures as a
very different type of computing. Although quantum may not get
through hoops like scalability, qubit stability, error resolution,
deployment and sheer cost any time soon (Google says five years for
practical real-world applications, Nvidia says at least twenty),
quantum’s potential as the next transformational development in
computational power is set to attract investor attention.
Copyright gets complicated
AI is rewriting the rules of IP. In 2026, copyright compliance
will become more of a moving target as courts wrestle with
liability for AI training and output ownership. Despite the eagerly
anticipated decision in Getty v Stability AI (see our analysis here), substantial
uncertainty remains around how IP liability applies to both AI
training and AI-generated content. Developers may try to dodge risk
by hosting models offshore and tightening filters. Meanwhile, the
UK’s Data (Use and Access) Act is set to provide some clarity
this spring as to whether computer-generated works deserve
protection or whether a human author is a copyright prerequisite.
Watch this space!
From concrete to code
The growth of AI-led predictive maintenance
With the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards regulations
requiring landlords to achieve a minimum Energy Performance
Certificate rating before letting or continuing to let their
buildings, the expected standards for landlords set at EPC
“C” in 2027 and EPC “B” by 2030, we expect to
see landlords and property managers leaning on predictive
maintenance and AI energy management to cut opex, improve RoI and
meet green mandates.
Sustainability and AI will therefore shift from optional add-ons
to core drivers of real estate value. Smart buildings powered by
IoT, predictive maintenance and AI energy management will become
standard, cutting costs and meeting regulatory demands while
strengthening asset performance. At the same time, landlords and
investors will move beyond pilots to full-scale AI adoption, using
automation and revenue intelligence to streamline workflows and
unlock efficiency. We expect corporate real estate providers to
follow the likes of Turner & Townsend, who recently launched a
digital project management tool – The Hive: Digital Marketplace.
The Hive exemplifies this shift, offering a single source for
project data, real-time benchmarking, and integrated tools that
improve transparency, accuracy, and strategic planning.
Trading on data, not just deeds
In 2026, the most valuable square metres in UK real estate
won’t just be prime floorspace; they’ll be buildings with
verifiable, compliant data—digital twins that carry a live
“golden thread” of safety, energy, and lifecycle
information. As the Building Safety regime tightens, developers and
owners will be forced to prove safety digitally, not just in
handover packs. We expect agreements for leaseto contain
warranties, completion definitions, and rent review clauses to
hardwire information obligations (such as structured data drops)
alongside traditional construction deliverables. Occupiers who can
evidence compliance cleanly will see faster gateway approvals and
smoother transactions.
We hope you enjoyed this year’s Tech Predictions. We wish you a
wonderful 2026!
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