How AI goes operational in 2026

2026 is about going operational, not going autonomous. For all the noise about autonomy, we’re going to need human intelligence in the loop for another decade. Models may sound like PhDs, but multimodality is in its infancy. Training in simulated environments, domain-specific data, and physical interaction will prime models for narrow, high-signal work in enterprise. But AI will not run the company in 2026.

Inside enterprises, the focus will shift from “how many pilots” to “how many scaled production work streams”. The constraint will be adoption, not capability. Most enterprises have a handful of enthusiasts. Scaling to thousands requires frameworks, culture change, and AI embedded in the tools people already use.

The real winners will flip from a cost reduction mindset to one of abundance: true competitive advantage won’t come from cutting 10 roles to five; it will come from getting 1,000-person output from the same 10.

Here are the themes we see emerging from firsthand work with the teams building frontier models and the enterprises deploying them.