Top Tech Predictions 2026: The Lighthouse View

Spoiler-alert first- there is nothing new or plot-changing that is visible on the 2026 horizon. But a lot of new and big ships would be building pace on the waves that were built last year. And, perhaps, in new directions.

- By Pratima H

This time of the year feels like sitting in front of a runway. Or inside a room with the best view in a lighthouse. Don't worry- not the ones where airplanes take off or ships collide. More like a fashion runway. And yet it feels strange because the new-and-cool designs that are walking towards you seem eerily-familiar. Maybe that's the point of it all. It's not exactly haute-couture. But pret-a-porter. Specially because a lot of it is from Al's atelier. This year would make everything wearable, affordable and fit-table (if that's a word by now).

AI-IN NEW SHOES

To start with, Al would catwalk its way from generic lanes to specific enterprise ones and with agentic as the dominant colour in vogue.

As per Forrester's State of Customer Obsession Survey 2025, 76 per cent of respondents plan to adopt Generative Al for visual content and 78 per cent for language, making it a core enabler for personalised experiences, automated content creation, and conversational interfaces, tells Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester from his gaze so far.

Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer at Hitachi Vantara magnifies the part of agentic AI here. “It will mark the shift from experimentation to operational reality. Unlike generative AI assistants, agentic systems act autonomously within defined guardrails, making decisions, executing tasks and optimising workflows in real time. This moves AI from a productivity enhancer to a digital workforce embedded into core business processes. The real disruption lies in ROI clarity, when AI can operate and adapt inside workflows, organisations can finally link Al investments to measurable outcomes such as faster cycles, lower costs, and improved resilience.”