Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Anudeep Parhar, Chief Operating Officer, Entrust
Digital trust will take on a whole new meaning in 2026. As automation accelerates, fraud becomes more sophisticated and realistic than ever before, and the post-quantum threat looms, organizations will need to remain agile and resilient to preserve the trust that underpins every digital interaction.
Ahead of the new year, I spoke with leaders at Entrust to discuss how these trends will evolve. Here’s what they revealed:
Tony Ball, President, Payments & Identity, Incoming Chief Executive Officer
The concept of an identity “perimeter” is obsolete. It’s time to acknowledge that we are creating amazing customer experiences that invite in risk and fraud – and focus on building trust into those experiences.
In 2026, we will see the fight fully shift from keeping threat actors “out” to securing every identity, and in doing so protecting the people, devices, and data that make trust possible. Forward-looking organizations will lean into securing the identity lifecycle, working in a continuous, adaptive identity-centric framework built on the reality that fraud is inevitable but not fatal. Interconnected identity ecosystems will replace isolated checkpoints, ensuring that when one node is compromised, the broader system endures.
The future of digital trust will be defined by resilience, not rigidity – by systems designed to evolve as fast as the threats that challenge them.
Mike Baxter, President and Chief Technology & Product Officer
In 2026, post-quantum readiness will become the ultimate trust signal for enterprises. As regulators and customers demand proof, organizations that can map, control, and begin transitioning their encryption to NIST-approved quantum-safe algorithms will gain a clear competitive advantage. For the first time, being able to demonstrate quantum resilience will separate leaders from laggards – in government contracts, financial services, and global supply chains.
Those who wait will discover the real point of no return isn’t the day quantum computers arrive, but the moment their encryption sprawl becomes too vast to retrofit. Boards will stop accepting reassurances and start demanding evidence: What percentage of your critical data is quantum-safe today? Companies with tangible answers will set the pace for the next decade.
Rishi Kaushal, Chief Information Officer
In 2026, AI will become both the attacker and the defender – and trust will determine who wins. The most significant cyber risks won’t just come from the speed of AI-enabled attacks, but from their realism. Generative AI is already being weaponized to create hyper-realistic deepfakes, synthetic identities, and voice spoofs that can bypass authentication systems. These threats will intensify as executive impersonation and social engineering become nearly indistinguishable from real human interaction.
To stay ahead, CIOs must treat AI not only as a productivity enabler, but as a core part of the enterprise defense fabric. AI systems will need to continuously monitor, detect, and neutralize emerging threats while also learning to resist manipulation through data poisoning, prompt injection, or model tampering.
But as AI transitions from a tool to an autonomous defender, accountability must evolve in parallel. Successful organizations will implement AI oversight frameworks aligned with enterprise risk management to define clear lines between automated decision-making and human judgment. Maintaining transparency in AI-to-AI interactions will be critical to preserving trust and control. Ultimately, resilience in 2026 will depend on the trustworthiness of the AI itself and the authenticity of the identities behind every digital interaction.”
Karen Kaukol, Chief Marketing Officer
AI has revolutionized marketing, making trust essential. Consumers expect a new level of personalized, respectful, and secure interactions. And they expect to be known and understood, regardless of whether they show up at your door in-person or digitally. Success in 2026 will come from balancing automation with human connection, focusing on transparency, data security, and meaningful engagement with your customers. Protecting their data is now a basic expectation. Brands that fail to do so will quickly lose trust and market share.
Simon Horswell, Senior Fraud Expert
By 2026, fraud will be more automated, organized, and industrialized. Attackers are already using AI, automation, and coordinated fraud rings to exploit new vulnerabilities as defences strengthen.
Next-generation schemes will strike across three fronts: identity, systems, and people. Fraudsters are targeting documents and attempting to impersonate biometrics with deepfakes, which now account for one in five biometric fraud attempts. Meanwhile, attackers are also targeting prevention systems at the technical level with a 40% YoY increase in injection attacks. At the same time, social engineering is surging – phishing, coercion, and impersonation scams are targeting people to use their own genuine credentials or transfer funds.
The future of fraud prevention lies in identity-centric, AI-driven defence. Organizations that protect every layer of identity – people, documents, biometrics, and systems – will be best equipped to adapt as fraudsters adopt new tools and tactics.”
Greg Wetmore, Vice President, Product Development
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) and quantum computing have a symbiotic relationship. Each technology is revolutionary on its own, and together, they have an amplifying effect. Artificial intelligence is already fueling quantum computing development by improving error correction techniques, optimizing hardware controls and discovering new algorithms that expand quantum computers’ usefulness. In turn, a scaled quantum computer could speed up the algebraic calculations machine learning models use to create relationships between data elements and apply calculations in parallel across high-dimensional data sets.
Experts expect quantum computers to break today’s public key cryptography by 2035 or sooner, threatening the privacy and integrity of digital information worldwide. The timeline to AGI and its impact on cybersecurity is less certain, but similar to current AI capabilities, it will undoubtedly be leveraged as a tool for defenders and an enabler for bad actors. This AI vs AI arms race underscores the need to build cryptographic agility into today’s digital systems. As AGI and quantum computers converge, this will be essential to adopt cryptographic algorithms without impacting the surrounding infrastructure at the pace of change required for the future.
Overall, these leaders make one thing clear: the organizations that thrive in 2026 will be those that adapt as quickly as the world around them. Trust won’t be easily won, but continuously earned through every customer interaction.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anudeep Parhar joined Entrust in 2016 to lead the company’s rapid expansion to the cloud for all facets of the business. His vision and leadership is vital to transforming the company’s technology operations for colleagues and customers and increasing the digital security posture. Mr. Parhar joined the company from Bloom Health where he served as chief technology officer. He previously held executive level IT and Technology roles at Digital River, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and Thomson Reuters West. He has a master’s in computer science from the University of Minnesota, Moorhead and a Bachelor’s in computer science and engineering from Gulbarga University, India.
