5 PREDICTIONS FOR AI IN 2026

The technology is poised for integration into everyday experience

- BY HARRY BOOTH AND THARIN PILLAY

LAST YEAR, AI COMPANIES STRUCK multibillion-dollar deals to build out AI infrastructure. In 2026, as this new computing power starts coming online, experts say we'll begin to see whether that investment pays off.

1. ADVANCING SCIENCE

In November, California startup Edison Scientific said its system, Kosmos, which combs existing scientific literature for new insights, has not only replicated human discoveries but also turned up new ones—like evidence that aging brain cells in Alzheimer's may tag themselves with signals telling the brain's cleanup system to dispose of them. The Trump Administration's Genesis Mission, a Manhattan Project–style initiative, also aims to use AI to advance science. But what counts as an autonomous discovery may be contested. We may be far from a discovery that “we can very confidently say a human would not have done that,” says Edward Parker, a physical scientist at think tank Rand Corp. He expects a “messy middle ground” in which AI assists human researchers more than it discovers on its own.

2. AI SHOPS FOR YOU