Predictions

Predictions for the year 2026.

• A major retailer reports >5% of online sales from agentic checkout as AI agent advertising spend hits $5B.
• A major AI lab leans back into open-sourcing frontier models to win over the current US administration.
• Open-ended agents make a meaningful scientific discovery end-to-end (hypothesis, expt, iteration, paper).
• A deepfake/agent-driven cyber attack triggers the first NATO/UN emergency debate on AI security.
• A real-time generative video game becomes the year’s most-watched title on Twitch.
• “AI neutrality” emerges as a foreign policy doctrine as some nations cannot or fail to develop sovereign AI.
• A movie or short film produced with significant use of AI wins major audience praise and sparks backlash.
• A Chinese lab overtakes the US lab dominated frontier on a major leaderboard (e.g. LMArena/Artificial Analysis).
• Datacenter NIMBYism takes the US by storm and sways certain midterm/gubernatorial elections in 2026.
• Trump issues an executive order to ban state AI legislation that is found unconstitutional by SCOTUS.