Predictions 2026 - The Year of Embedded Intelligence

The year 2025 saw the emergence of a far more multi-polar world with less cooperation and a stronger focus on national interests and regional competition. The result has been an increase in economic disruption and geopolitical insecurity with strong headwinds for enterprise strategy and planning. At the same time, an unprecedented boom in AI infrastructure investment was driven by optimism about the technology’s potential. However, it left enterprises wondering about the best next steps for their technology strategies.

In 2026, enterprises will need to shift from reactively observing to proactively addressing challenges and opportunities. They will take advantage of emerging technology trends to upgrade platforms and create more resilient supply chains, upskill workforces, add intelligence to their products and services, and operate in more localized environments that are, crucially, closer to customers.

Despite daunting economic challenges, the necessary transformation cannot be deferred. In an increasingly inward-looking US, new infrastructures and supply chains require a local focus and highly competitive technology. In defensive Europe, new ecosystems must support complex infrastructure investments and more sovereign technology platforms. In Asia, the restructuring and diversification of supply chains away from China, along with the growing competition in environmental technology, present both challenges and opportunities.

Technological optimism about a revolution in the way we work, trade, and manage is driving unprecedented investment in AI infrastructure and model development. Since opportunities will take years to materialize, concerns about a short-term "bubble" are justified, but they should not prevent us from preparing for their potential. AI Agents are evolving rapidly, and successful enterprises seize the opportunity to modernize and re-design for an AI-enabled world that is more complex, localized, and technology-driven.

In 2026, the development of Agentic AI, focusing on goal-oriented AI solutions will gain further pace and start to have an impact. Instead of reactive chatbots and assistants for support on simple tasks, AI Agents starting to help with process solutions. While their main impact will come when many different agents start to cooperate and work together, the opportunity will lead enterprises to get ready by transforming their processes and rethink their business design for systems that start to think, learn and lead.

In 2026, successful enterprises will transition from reactively observing disruption to proactively shaping their business models and operations for a more diverse multipolar world. They will take advantage of emerging technology trends to upgrade platforms and create more resilient supply chains, upskill workforces, add intelligence to their products and services, and operate in more localized environments that are, crucially, closer to customers.

The following technology trends stand out to help enterprises capitalizing on the Agentic AI boom and prepare for a more complex geo-economic environment in 2026. The trends range from next steps in AI model development, smarter security and supply chains, to a new approach for work and growth in rapidly ageing societies.

Small AI models and specialized AI Agent development stand out in their ability to support companies with process transformation and planning. As production and services move closer to customers in various regions, flexible automation in smaller-scale operations becomes crucial. Large, sprawling AI models serve as blueprints for smaller, lightweight, and domain-specific AI "student" models. In many cases, these models will outperform their "teachers" in specific tasks.

At Fujitsu, its Takane technology successfully develops such models that run on the "edge", offering high energy efficiency and accuracy.

See: TAKANE Enterprise LLM with Generative AI Reconstruction

Further flattening organizational structures is vital for effectively localizing operations and boosting the efficiency of a hybrid workforce that operates both online and offline, especially in preparation for AI integration. We will see greater adoption of AI assistants and the development of AI agents to handle workplace processes and communication on major platforms. Successful implementation depends on empowering employees in their operational roles and accurately valuing an increasingly diverse, AI-enabled workforce beyond simply tracking hours.

Fujitsu co-designs AI-driven workplace solutions for digital colleagues and copilots, helping to improve decision-making and streamline multi-step employee tasks. Together with Seven-Eleven, Japan’s leading convenience store chain, it has developed a training platform that helps to understand and execute convenience store operations, enables real-time tracking of acquired skills, and accelerates employee readiness. The solution is expected to reach over 400,000 employees in 22,000 stores.

Physical AI for “real” world action is seeing a breakthrough with autonomous taxis and attention-grabbing humanoid robots. However, for enterprises, the main impact comes from specialized robots that can sense, act, and become trained by example for dynamic environments of factory floors, warehouses, restaurants and hospitals. Physical AI is further leveraged by the development of agentic AI and small AI models that can work "at the edge" in robotics and automation. Training otherwise specialized robots by example in different environments now vastly expands their usability in manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare at the local level.

Fujitsu is a leader in industrial AI capabilities and has integrated them with generative AI potentials on its Kozuchi AI platform. It has developed Social Digital Twin^TM models for human systems interaction, and will demonstrate World Models at the CES 2026, which can recognize human intention and anticipate needs for robotic real world interaction.

Cybersecurity becomes even more important as AI analytics capable of detecting and exploiting vulnerabilities are increasingly used in local cyberattacks. The attention that recent high-profile ransomware attacks have gained when they disrupted production and became national security concerns has been an important wakeup call (Marks & Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Asahi Beer, …). As enterprises recognize this new level of vulnerability, governments will advocate for proactive defense measures and stricter regulations. A strong focus on proactive AI-driven trust and digital sovereignty technologies will help companies not only to remain safe, but also to prepare for a new regulatory environment.

Fujitsu has developed multi-AI agent security technologies with its partners and cooperates with governments to solve enterprise and national security challenges.

See: Multi-AI agent security technology to protect against vulnerabilities and new threats

Data sovereignty and federated clouds will spur the development of alternatives to public clouds and US hyperscaler services. Although international dataspace projects involving public and private sectors, such as Gaia-X and Catena-X in the European Union (EU) and Data-EX and Ouranos in Japan, have progressed slowly so far, they are starting to have an impact. The new urgency to share a wider range of data across supply chains in hybrid cloud environments, and government investment in national security is leading to a wave of experimentation — both in Europe, as it pursues data sovereignty, and in Asia, where supply chains are diversifying and must integrate China-related and non-China-related data layers.

Fujitsu plays a key role in supporting initiatives across Europe and Asia and supports its partners with digital trust technologies.

Source: Data spaces - International Data Spaces

Reinforcing national defense has become crucial for all major countries. As a result, barriers to using private technology for military purposes have been lowered, and smart technologies, ranging from autonomous drones to AI vision analytics, are transforming defense. Meanwhile, significant public investment is creating opportunities in defense research and development, including cybersecurity, earth intelligence (geospatial analytics), robotics, and autonomous systems. Dual use of national security (defense) technologies opens new markets.

Fujitsu is leveraging technology support for national security agencies while working on the next levels of secure communication, analytics, and quantum simulations.

For Fujitsu Strategies see: Fujitsu | DSEI UK 2025

High-performance computing (HPC) and quantum computing are aligning to produce tangible results much earlier than anticipated. HPC-based error correction is incorporating more unstable physical qubits into reliable logical qubits. HPC-powered quantum simulation offers a crucial link to experimentation, with a growing range of quantum solutions for complex business challenges, including optimization and material research. At the same time AI is accelerating quantum system development and demand for complex data model solutions.

Fujitsu has created a platform for hybrid quantum computing and is developing technology that automatically optimizes workload selection for customers based on parameters such as calculation time, accuracy, and cost.

As global cooperation retreated and economic costs increased, support for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles deteriorated. Consequently, energy security and efficiency strategies will play a larger role in achieving environmental and social goals. However, as investments in AI-related technology lead growth strategies, the importance of trusted technology governance will increase. At each level, new and old ESG goals must therefore converge.

Fujitsu’s platform for ESG management continuously integrates enterprise needs for efficiency, security, and impact into social and governance strategies.

Enterprise blockchains are finally emerging from the "trough of disillusionment." Driven by a boom in cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, and supported by major banks, enterprise payment functions can be streamlined and prepared for AI-based "machine customers." Enterprise blockchains will enable significantly lower transaction costs and payments with tokens and smart contracts, forming the foundation for process transformation and greater autonomy in AI agent transactions.

Fujitsu has consistently supported blockchain technology as part of its Track and Trust platform and is collaborating with partners to co-design solutions.

The "New Silver Economy" creates new growth opportunities in challenging environments of slowing domestic economies. Rather than increasing the demand of aging consumers, the main component is AI-driven opportunities to retain and empower a more motivated workforce for longer. In Japan, seniors are already among the largest contributors to growth. To further improve productivity, AI agents are being developed to preserve the deep domain expertise of senior employees. These agents interact in natural language with continuously updated systems and augment the skills and capabilities of senior employees with on-demand tutors. Seamlessly connecting the experienced senior workforce with the shrinking number of juniors on AI-enabled communication platforms becomes vital to increasing productivity on both ends.

Fujitsu has been at the forefront of work transformation and digital productivity with its Work Life Shift initiative for years. It Is co-designing workplace solutions for AI Agent integration to improve decision-making and streamlining multi-step employee tasks and employee empowerment.

In 2026, as companies face economic instability and swift technological progress, this year will be crucial for integrating intelligence into systems, organizations, and industries. The adoption of AI agents, sovereign data infrastructures, and resilient computing will determine how well companies can adjust to a more fragmented global landscape. Early movers—those creating agile, intelligent, and localized operations—will succeed despite disruptions and drive the shift toward a more balanced and interconnected digital economy.