2025 was the year AI grew up. How will AI evolve in 2026?

In 2025, AI crossed an important threshold. After years of experimentation, generative AI moved decisively into enterprise workflows, while agentic systems and long-term memory capabilities began to take shape in real-world deployments.

This marked significant progress for AI in the enterprise, yet the next milestones for the direction of AI remain far from settled. The past year exposed both the promise and the constraints of large-scale generative models, forcing organizations to confront trade-offs around accuracy, governance, and return on investment.

As a result, current AI conversations aren’t focused on hype, but by pragmatism. Leaders are shifting their focus from what AI can do in theory to what it should do in practice.

From reactive to proactive AI ...