Review of EY Megatrends 2026: Reshaping Future Business

Discover the key insights from EY Megatrends 2026 and the  main trends now reshaping business, technology, and leadership. From the rise of superfluid organizations and human-machine collaboration to talent disruption, migration shifts, and the global resource race —this episode details some of what leaders must do to stay ahead. Learn why trust, adaptability, and rethink of business norms have become essential in a non-linear world where change happens faster than ever before.

Transcript

Leaders must begin to rethink old business norms and start building superfluid organisations - as they separate signal from noise. In a fast evolving landscape driven by technology, many are starting with pilots in agentic AI, smart contracts, and digital twins, and learning quickly from pilot failures. Existing structures may stay for now, but as roles, capabilities, and models evolve, silos and hierarchies give way to flatter models. Leaders must preserve trust of stakeholders, the most important intangible asset.

Hello and welcome to Global Business Insights, where we bring perspectives to help navigate an increasingly complex terrain. Today, we review EY Megatrends 2026 report—a comprehensive analysis looking at how the future of business is being shaped in real time.

As 2026 unfolds, there’s value in pausing—not just to react to change, but to understand it. As EY Global Vice Chair Hanne Jesca Bax puts it: “Leaders who thrive will be those who invest in human capability, build trust deliberately, and design organisations where adaptability is not just a goal… but a core operating principle.”

We may be at an inflection point, she says, where today’s decisions on leadership, technology, and people will compound over the next decade. Let’s start with the environment leaders are operating in.

Back in 2021, only 1% of global executives said geopolitical risk consistently surprised them. By 2025? That number jumped to 35%. Today, perhaps over 80% of leaders feel overwhelmed by geopolitical uncertainty. At the same time, more than ever, leaders are energised by the possibilities created by emerging technologies.  So what’s changed? Change itself. It’s no longer linear. Change now arrives in bursts and sudden tipping points. The past is no longer a reliable guide. Artificial intelligence is accelerating this reality—breaking adoption records and scaling faster than anything  seen before.

At the same time, the world is more volatile. Younger generations are reshaping consumer behaviour, while social media and supply chain innovation are driving waves of microtrends that can fade within weeks rather than years. Interconnectedness is also deepening: conflict in one region can quickly fuel inflation elsewhere, while trade policy changes can simultaneously disrupt supply chains, redirect capital, reshape energy investment and alter migration patterns.

How do leaders navigate a world that no longer behaves predictably and change is nonlinear?  EY identifies some megatrends shaping the future— today I look at six of them from this recent report.

First … The rise of the superfluid enterprise. Second is the era of the human-machine hybrid…third is a global productivity reset, fourth is about demographic and migration shifts. And then the fifth is the global resource rush and finally – there is a rethinking of capitalism itself

So Let’s break these down.   First—the superfluid enterprise. Traditionally, organisations are slowed by friction from layers of hierarchy, delayed decisions and disconnected systems.   But what happens when that friction disappears? Emerging technologies—agentic AI, blockchain-based smart contracts, digital twins—are making this possible. Old approval processes and checkpoints are becoming redundant. Internal controls are more inbuilt into workflows.  The result is a new kind of organisation: which is flatter, faster and more adaptive and where decisions flow seamlessly… and creativity accelerates. 

The second trend of human machine collaboration at scale today is at its earliest phase – so imagine what a few years could look like. The global market for human augmentation technologies could reach US$1.39t by 2034. The main question is now how to avoid being edged out by organisations able to amplify human potential thus changing the competitive game as a 73% productivity increase becomes not just possible but within reach. Imagine the impact of tens of billions of artificial entities joining the workforce, operating 24/7 at lower cost and near-limitless scale. Note that technologies reshaping human capability also affect how human talent must be led. Leaders have to be comfortable with making strategic decisions alongside AI systems that outperform human analysis. Leaders now manage more diverse teams with widely varying capabilities, and understand that societal and regulatory implications of enhancing human output will also need to managed. EY concludes that the leadership playbook is being rewritten in real time. Companies are already as first step piloting AI collaboration and physical augmentation tools with clear metrics, tracking productivity, innovation, competitive advantage, employee wellbeing, and adoption barriers. Learning also from these pilots.

On productivity, traditional financial and non financial measures seek to maximise returns at lowest cost; or ratio of output to input. Most of these measures will no more apply. Already familiar quarterly familiar metrics are increasingly seen as not always helpful in gauging corporate health.  The future is more about  a subtle shift to capacity to convert information, insight, and innovation into sustained economic value. The challenge becomes how to observe and quantify gains that occur not on production lines but in digital ecosystems, in decision speed, system adaptability, and tracking the creativity unlocked through human-machine collaboration. For illustration, your P&L may be showing huge losses because of strategic investments … and your cash may even be short but there is a momentum of creativity that has already set you far ahead of the pack  (not seen in numbers). Gains may still be lost in financial statements that have no way of showing progress in speed, quality, resilience and potential or possibility of new revenue streams.

Looking at people - in the old world, organisations competed in an outdated model for talent as though it were scarce and fixed. So what has changed.  Capabilities today expire faster than traditional learning systems can renew them. Learning systems built for 18-month cycles can’t meet requirements that evolve in 18 weeks. The result is a  “Talent Debt” or unrealized potential that accumulates when human and machine capabilities fail to evolve together.  Machines are learning faster than humans who have to work alongside them. The gap in pace of learnings between machine and people implies tensions similar to what you get when you pair two individuals with vastly different understanding of issues. This implies rethinking traditional approaches to learning and building a “co-learning” machine-human enterprise. The next wave of successful organizations will be those that can see how their adaptive capability is growing - as the real benchmark of competitive strength ; not just sheer headcount or a static skill inventory.  Roles are now being redesigned for humans and AI to evolve together, each focused on respective strengths. The most impactful AI systems are assimilated with intent to enhance human capability, not diminish or replace it. 

On migration, winners will see it as a competitive advantage, not a political flashpoint. Infrastructure such as visa processing, credential recognition, housing and integration will determine whether countries turn demographic pressure into economic gain. Sub-Saharan Africa’s working-age population is set to rise from 883 million to 1.6 billion by 2050, even as global labour shortages deepen across several sectors; healthcare, manufacturing, construction and technology. But the systems linking talent supply and demand are under strain. Countries such as United States, and to some extent South Africa and UK, have unfortunately politicised migration themes. Spain is an example of where they got it right. In 2023, immigration accounted for 64% of new jobs, half of economic growth, and a 3% rise in GDP—nearly four times the Eurozone average.

The fifth factor—is about the global resource rush.  A new race is underway—across three frontiers: Deep earth and seabed mining; The Arctic And even space. The space economy alone could reach $1 trillion by 2032.

Meanwhile, demand for critical minerals—like lithium and rare earths—is rapidly outpacing supply.  But with opportunity comes risk from environmental concerns and regulatory uncertainty.  At the same time, a shift is emerging toward circular economies such as Recycling, Product life extension, Asset-as-a-service models. Essentially doing more… with less with increasingly zero waste type operating models.

In the future, trust will become the defining intangible asset. Breaches of trust will carry great consequences, and trust itself will be more essential to success. Can we trust the data? Can we trust companies to use it responsibly? Can we trust controls taken over by AI and inbuilt into workflows, and understand the bias built into them? Without trust you weaken the value of data and limit ability to create value and drive adoption.

AI cannot thrive where trust is weak, so leaders must intentionally adopt behaviours to build trust. Some mistrust can be healthy—but corrosive mistrust is dangerous. People often forgive competence failures more than integrity breaches. In the new era, leaders must build trust deliberately and lead with transparency.

Capitalism is about efficiently allocating capital toward activities that are deemed to offer the highest short-term financial returns. In today’s less stable and volatile environment, that presents unique challenges.  Also we see AI accelerating a winner‑take‑most dynamic as 7 Large AI-oriented tech firms make up 33% of S&P 500 market cap and 0.001% of Humanity own three times more wealth than the bottom 50% . This calls for a better balance and governments should invest for the long term in people, infrastructure and the economy, while providing legitimacy, appropriate regulatory guardrails and ensuring trust rather than heavy-handed intervention. Investors should spread capital much more broadly than is presently the case; prioritising diversification, resilience and long-term returns. Companies should broaden their mandate to create value for all stakeholders. There can be a better balance that is more sustainable.

So what does all this mean for leaders? Starting with revisiting some fundamentals and having the right data foundations; everyne can find his or her own beginning point. It could mean releasing old assumptions, planning for multiple scenarios, building flexibility into every decision and investing in people, not just technology.  Above all, building organisations that can adapt—continuously. Because in a world of non-linear change, the winners won’t just respond to the future. They will be reshaping it.

Well that’s it on this special episode of global business insights. We are now on Spotify, Apple podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts from; we are on most popular podcast platforms so do please support us. This is Bode ososami, thanks for watching and please follow and hit the notification button. Bye Bye.