At the recent Gartner IT Symposium/XPO, Gartner revealed: Top 10 Strategic Forecasts Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we cover three categories: talent in the AI era, sovereignty, and insidious AI.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, generative AI agents will represent the first real challenge to mainstream productivity tools in 30 years, leading to a $58 billion market disruption.
Advances in generative AI will allow organizations to focus on innovation and speeding up work completion, making traditional formats and compatibility less important.
Other predictions include:
By 2027, 75% of hiring processes will include workplace AI proficiency certification and testing at the time of hire.
As AI proficiency becomes part of the hiring process and generative capabilities are linked to higher salaries, candidates will also become more focused on acquiring AI skills.
By 2026, the atrophy of critical thinking skills due to the use of Gen AI will result in 50% of the world’s organizations requiring “AI-free” skills assessments.
The hiring process differentiates between candidates who work and think independently and those who rely heavily on AI output.
By 2027, 35% of countries will be locked into region-specific AI platforms that use their own contextual data.
As adaptations are shaped by regulation, language, and culture, AI becomes more localized and the need for a global, one-size-fits-all model decreases.
By 2028, organizations will leverage multi-agent AI in 80% of customer-facing business processes.
Companies will adopt a hybrid AI approach where CRMs manage day-to-day operations and employees focus on complex, emotionally sensitive interactions.
By 2028, 90% of B2B purchases will be AI agent-mediated, and over $15 trillion of B2B spending will be driven through AI agent exchanges.
Verifiable data powers a trust-based economy where API-driven architectures and transactions reshape competitive advantage.
Due to insufficient AI risk guardrails, the number of legal “death by AI” claims is expected to exceed 2,000 by the end of 2026.
“Death by AI” incidents will increase regulation, prompt legal action, and shift responsibility to local actors, making companies more focused on safety, transparency, and governance.
By 2030, 20% of financial transactions will be programmable to include terms of use to give economic agency to AI agents.
Programmable money is transforming commerce through machine-driven transactions and innovative financial models, but fragmented standards, security risks, and regulatory gaps may prevent it from reaching its full potential.
By 2027, the reinvention of agentic AI will reduce the cost-value gap for process-centric service contracts by at least 50%.
AI agents help transform interactions into processes, enabling value creation beyond labor through innovative workflows.
By 2027, disaggregated AI regulation will expand to cover 50% of the global economy, driving $5 billion in compliance investment.
Governance programs will be essential to AI transformation and help mitigate ever-changing regulatory and business risks.
