Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Up until 2025, players in the AI industry have competed to build the most sophisticated large language models, while organizations and individuals have focused on adopting AI technology. 2026 will be marked by the rise of AI agents, the urgent need for AI output governance, and unexpected challenges for organizations as individuals increasingly use AI tools to craft complex complaints and grievances.
Paul Walker, Global Solutions Director, iManage, highlights his views on the changing AI landscape in 2026:
Building AI Agents is the Next Battleground
Over the past two years, the AI industry has been consumed by a race to build increasingly sophisticated large language models (LLMs). With leading systems having achieved mastery over this capability, 2026 will see the focus of competition move away from model sophistication toward delivering tangible, practical value.
The next battleground is AI agents – autonomous agents that can reliably “execute” complex tasks and directly impact business outcomes. AI success will increasingly be defined by its ability to deliver clear, quantifiable returns on investment.
Governing AI Output Will Become a Priority
Up until now, organizations have focused on capturing and documenting information and communication on tasks and activities – from email correspondence, Microsoft Teams chats, Slack conversations – within digital/matter files.
In 2026, as AI agents develop, capturing and maintaining the communications of this new “labor” force – as part of the existing digital/matter files and document histories – will become a business imperative. As AI agents assume greater decision-making authority, organizations will need robust frameworks to track, oversee, and ensure accountability for the actions and outputs of AI in their business.
Prepare for Increased Workloads, Thanks to Best Friend ChatGPT
The landscape of formal complaints is rapidly transforming. Typically, grievances arrived as brief emails and were reviewed by customer support or the relevant department, following established procedures. Today, AI tools like ChatGPT are enabling individuals to craft sophisticated legal documents as complaints. Now routine complaints arrive as comprehensive, multi-page reports – often complete with articulate legal arguments that standard departmental teams or internal staff cannot effectively handle. These complaints require specialized expertise to review and resolve.
This phenomenon will dramatically accelerate in 2026, creating significant challenges across organizational departments. Customer support departments, HR functions, corporate legal teams, and so forth will face mounting workloads as the complexity of grievances increases.
Standard operational procedures require a complete overhaul, as both internal and external stakeholders have access to professional-level document-generating capabilities – potentially increasing organizational risk and legal exposure.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As the Global Solutions Director at iManage, Paul Walker leads initiatives that help organizations in the knowledge work sectors adopt technology to improve how they manage knowledge, streamline workflows, and ensure compliance.
