Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Pierre Lamy, Sr. Principal Product Manager, Anomali
The turbulence of the past two years has pushed enterprises, governments, and technology providers to confront difficult truths: productivity has stalled, talent models are cracking, cybersecurity threats are escalating, and global infrastructure dependencies are becoming strategic liabilities.
As we head into 2026, the divide between organizations that adapt, and those that hold on to old assumptions, will widen dramatically. Based on patterns emerging across the threat landscape, economic signals, and structural pressures shaping the global tech ecosystem, here are the six forces I believe will define the coming year.
Cyber Talent Demand Will Surge Selectively
The aftershocks of the mass layoffs that swept through 2025 will continue well into the new year. These reductions weren’t just budget-driven; they reflected a growing divide between workers who embraced AI-driven workflows and those who resisted them. The reality is that productivity never fully recovered after COVID, and organizations are no longer willing to support employees who do not meaningfully incorporate AI and LLM tools into their day-to-day performance.
By late 2026, however, we will see a course correction. Hiring will resume, but it will be far more selective than before. The most sought-after candidates will be those who have developed AI fluency and can combine human intuition with AI-assisted processes to deliver outsized impact. Upskilling is shifting from a competitive advantage to a baseline requirement for employability across the cybersecurity sector.
AI Will Expose Weaknesses in the Junior Workforce
The notion that AI will empower a less-experienced workforce to perform at senior levels will prove overly optimistic. While AI can accelerate output, it cannot compensate for foundational gaps in reasoning, writing, analytical rigor, or informed decision-making. Many organizations will discover that AI amplifies skill, but it also amplifies the lack of it.
This reality will force companies to confront uncomfortable questions about onboarding, mentorship, and expectations for early-career talent. Without intentional investment in core competencies, the junior workforce will struggle to meet rising performance standards-no matter how advanced their AI tools become.
Market Consolidation Will Reshape the Security Landscape
A wave of mergers and acquisitions is ongoing, driven by pricing pressure, the high cost of innovation, and deepening ecosystem lock-in. Smaller vendors will find themselves squeezed between ballooning compute costs and customer demand for integrated platforms.
The outcome will be fewer, but larger, security providers. While consolidation brings efficiency, it also concentrates risk. As dependence on a handful of giants grows, so does the potential for widespread outages or security failures with cascading global impact.
AI Service Providers Will Face a Harsh Correction
The rapid proliferation of AI infrastructure and service companies cannot continue at the current pace. Rising compute prices, power limitations, and investor expectations will create unsustainable pressure on many of these providers. In 2026, we’ll see a significant shakeout: organizations that fail to optimize for resilience, through diversified energy sources, regionalized workloads, and efficient model architectures, simply won’t survive.
Only AI companies that design for long-term sustainability, not just rapid scale, will emerge from this correction stronger.
Cyber Threats Will Persist – and Deepen
Ransomware, supply chain breaches, and credential theft will remain relentless. Underfunded public-sector defenses and leadership gaps will continue to erode response capabilities. Even cybersecurity vendors themselves will increasingly become targets, a trend accelerated by attackers’ pursuit of high-leverage access points.
The harsh truth is that no organization is insulated. The fragility of today’s digital ecosystem ensures that threat actors will continue exploiting even minor weaknesses, especially as geopolitical tensions escalate.
Data Sovereignty Pressures Will Redefine Infrastructure Strategy
Data sovereignty will move from a compliance checkbox to a matter of national resilience. Governments and large enterprises alike will push aggressively toward localized infrastructure, driven by geopolitical distrust and recent large-scale outages that highlighted the risks of global cloud dependencies.
This shift will also spark a realignment of managed services models. U.S. tariff tensions and sovereignty concerns will pressure organizations to reshore key functions or shift to “friendly” jurisdictions. India’s IT giants, long dominant in outsourced services, will face mounting pressure to reinvent themselves or risk losing ground to AI-driven alternatives and regionally aligned competitors.
In the coming year, the organizations that will win are those that invest in resilience, whether in talent, infrastructure, or security strategy. Those who fail to adapt to these structural forces will find themselves increasingly exposed. The future will not favor the biggest players, but instead, the most prepared.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With more than 20 years of experience, Pierre has built and led cyber threat intelligence, incident response, and security operations programs across financial services, global enterprises, and industry trust groups. Previously, he served as Global Head of Threat Intelligence at S&P Global, where he built and scaled an enterprise intelligence program and incident response capability.
His earlier roles include leadership positions at Flashpoint and FS-ISAC, as well as securing global enterprises through his work at Check Point and Nokia. He has also contributed to industry standards, co-authoring ISAO’s framework on cybersecurity analysis.
