S04E12 - 2026 Tech Predictions

The thirty-fourth episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). This month, it's time for the annual Deep Analysis predictions, so Matt is joined by both Alan and Dan to discuss a handful of those in our extensive predictions report and catch up on how well those made 12 months have panned out now that they've made contact with reality.

In this month’s episode:

Dan: 2025 Review and 2026 Prediction

First up, Dan discusses his 2025 prediction, "To grow, intelligent document processing (IDP) companies must cross the border. He's giving himself a tick here, as he's seeing many vendors pushing the edges of both the vertical (industry) and horizontal (business function) markets that they've grown out of. For 2026, Dan is backing the prediction "The unstructured data gold rush will finally begin", which follows on from his 2025 prediction (and also Alan's 2025 prediction recapped below) that the growth in specific vertical and business functions for AI-derived technology like IDP and the broader AI agent market means a need for access to a lot more business data (and all the jeans, shovels and buckets that requires).

Alan: 2025 Review and 2026 Prediction

Alan starts with a review of his 2025 prediction "Structured data people will stop treating unstructured data like something that got stuck in their shoes" and gives himself a partial tick, in that he believes that there is general move from the big application vendors to recognise unstructured data is really useful for context, but also at the same time that it's really complicated to pick out the different data types within that big unstructured pile (and that's not just a technical challenge). For 2026, he's pitching "Edge computing will re-emerge as a strategic imperative"; specifically, that access to AI-derived applications increasingly need to take advantage of on-device processing, clever caching technology, etc., to enable remote workers (and related use cases) to operate smoothly.

Matt: 2025 Review and 2026 Prediction

Finally, it's Matt and he's keen up provide an update on his 2025 prediction "The shift to “payment on outcome” is going to lead to some awkward conversations between customers and suppliers". He explains that the business of developing consumption-based pricing models for AI agents has become increasingly complex, moving beyond the success criteria (especially Salesforce's per-conversation pricing, which remains but is joined by other options). In general, determining the economics of AI agent use remains in the early stages of being made easier to calculate. That notwithstanding, Matt is giving himself a tick here. For 2026, Matt is backing "'Doorstep adoption' of AI will be exposed as a counterproductive farce" as his chosen prediction; that vendors enforcing the bundling of AI tools into renewals doesn't make their adoption real. Matt suggests that it's akin to having a trailer (or a caravan if you prefer) welded to the back of your car without your permission, and then a bill arriving for the job for the excellent utility it provides. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LulxRfzf8jk 

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 12

Here's Alan's introductory blog for this year's predictions: It’s Time to Separate the Wine from the Hype.
The download page for the full awards