10 Tech Predictions for 2026: The Year of the "Agentic" Enterprise Author
2025 was a year of friction for the entire tech industry. We saw the “AI Boom” collide with the reality of legacy infrastructure, creating a gap between expectation and delivery. But friction creates heat, and heat drives evolution.
At High Digital, we’ve spent the last year refining our approach, moving beyond simple “digital transformation” to building Intelligent Data Products. Drawing on our work with platforms like Olympus, ESG HUB, and Hanse Analytics, here are our 10 predictions for where technology is heading in 2026.
The Rise of the “Agentic” World
1. AI Agents Replace Chatbots The era of the passive chatbot is over. In 2026, we will see the mass adoption of Agentic AI, systems that don’t just answer questions but perform tasks. We are already exploring this with our internal tooling; imagine a data product that doesn’t just show you a dip in sales but autonomously investigates the root cause and drafts a report.
2. The “Micro-LLM” Revolution Bigger isn’t always better. We predict a shift toward smaller, domain-specific Language Models (SLMs) that run faster and cheaper. For specialised tools like Rethink Demand’s Olympus (campaign intelligence platform), a massive generalist model is overkill. A hyper-tuned, smaller model that understands your specific niche will become the gold standard for B2B tools.
3. “Vibe Coding” Meets Enterprise Rigour AI-assisted coding is accelerating development speed (a key focus for us in 2026). However, the prediction here is the formalisation of AI code reviews. Platforms will need to become the “safety net” for AI-generated code, ensuring that while we build faster, we don’t introduce security vulnerabilities or “hallucinated” logic.
The Evolution of Data Products
4. Data Contracts Become Mandatory In our previous post, “What do you Mean by Data Product,” we talked about treating data as a product. In 2026, this matures into Data Contracts, enforceable agreements between data producers and consumers. This will be the cure for the “broken pipeline” fatigue that plagued many organizations in 2025.
5. The Death of the Static Dashboard Standard BI dashboards are becoming obsolete. Users are tired of “staring at charts.” The future is narrative-driven analytics interfaces that explain what happened in plain English (or your preferred language) and suggest what to do next. We are currently trialing these features to make tools like Hanse even more accessible to non-technical users.
6. Synthetic Data Goes Mainstream Privacy concerns and data scarcity are real bottlenecks. We predict that by the end of 2026, 40% of new AI models will be trained on Synthetic Data, artificially generated data that mimics the real world without exposing sensitive customer info. This is a game-changer for industries like FinTech and Healthcare where we do significant work.
Infrastructure & Strategy
7. FinOps as a Survival Skill The cloud is getting expensive, and AI inference costs are the new “hidden killer.” 2026 will see FinOps (Financial Operations) move from a “nice-to-have” to a critical gatekeeper. Every engineering decision will have a direct cost-per-token metric attached to it.
8. Green Software Engineering Sustainability is returning to the forefront. Just as Hanse Analytics was supported by the Sustainable Innovation Fund, we expect clients to start demanding “Carbon-Aware” software applications that optimise their energy consumption based on grid carbon intensity.
9. The Return of “Hybrid” (Edge AI) To combat latency and cost, AI will move to the “Edge”, running locally on devices rather than constantly pinging the cloud. For our clients with field operations, this means apps that remain intelligent even when offline.
10. Speed is the New Strategy This is our most important prediction. In 2025, many companies (ourselves included) felt the pain of slow delivery in a fast market. In 2026, Velocity Engineering will become a dedicated discipline. It’s no longer just about Agile; it’s about AI-native workflows that cut “Idea-to-Live” time by 50%.
The High Digital Outlook
We aren’t just watching these trends; we are building them.
Whether it’s refactoring our delivery model to match the speed of AI or upgrading our established products like Hanse Analytics with agentic capabilities, High Digital is entering 2026 with a clear mission: To build the future, faster.
Ready to future-proof your tech stack? Let’s talk 2026
