As I reflect on yet another year of tectonic adjustment across the technology sector, I see little evidence that things are about to calm down. If anything, the forces reshaping enterprise IT feel more entrenched, more demanding, and more consequential than ever. Looking toward 2026, five areas stand out—not as new ideas, but as unresolved realities that continue to define how organizations operate, invest, and adapt.
AI grows up—or starts to.
The conversation around AI is quietly shifting from if and when to why, how, and where. With unprecedented data-center horsepower and rapid innovation in models, tooling, and processors -not least the emerging z17 stack- the expectation is no longer experimentation for its own sake. Enterprises are looking for AI to modernize what already exists, automate operations at scale, and finally begin delivering measurable value. The coming year will still bring bubbles and blips, but the underlying pressure is clear: AI must start earning its keep.
Delivery at the speed of business becomes non-negotiable.
Disconnected teams, fragmented platforms, and “that’s just how long it takes” explanations are rapidly losing tolerance at the executive level. Leaders will increasingly demand short, sharp delivery cycles—sometimes weekly—across everything from application features and system upgrades to compliance activities and training programs. Immediacy will become the default expectation, enabled not by heroics, but by smarter policies and genuinely modern technology choices.
The devil remains firmly in the data.
Cybersecurity anxiety shows no signs of easing, nor should it. Attack surfaces continue to expand, compliance obligations remain relentless, and the crown jewels of enterprise data—on which so much AI opportunity depends—require constant investment and evolution. Data integrity, thoughtful design, and security will remain non-negotiable foundations of IT delivery. The organizations that succeed will be those that put data first, not last.
Ruthlessness in growth and cost management continues.
The normalization of hard decision-making is now part of the enterprise landscape. The technology sector has always been shaped by seismic shifts in the pursuit of value creation, and the year ahead is unlikely to be any different. Expect continued investment in growth where returns are clear, paired with uncompromising cost-management measures where they are not. Across both suppliers and consumers of IT, the mantra holds: the only constant is change. Buckle up—again.
We all have one job: IT.
Driven by relentless change, previously siloed functions will continue to converge. As organizations focus on outcomes rather than platforms, specialist skills will remain essential, but integration and hybrid thinking will increasingly take precedence. Mainframers skeptical of open systems will need to evolve to avoid marginalization; cloud-only dogmatists will need to recalibrate. IT leadership will move steadily toward a more unified approach in practice, mindset, and even vocabulary. The most successful organizations will put people and ideas first, using technology not as competing domains, but as a singular strategic enabler.
None of these themes are new. Yet few are close to being resolved in most enterprises. That tension—between familiarity and unfinished work—is what makes the year ahead so compelling. If nothing else, it promises to be another fascinating chapter in the ongoing evolution of enterprise IT.
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