The foundations of New Zealand’s past and its culture of experimentation have set the stage, but 2026 will test which organisations can scale, govern responsibly, and leverage emerging technologies effectively.

In 2026, many organisations will have agentic AI – with direct access to critical data – operating as a non-human workforce, demanding controls beyond traditional oversight.

AI has firmly become a strategic imperative, transforming decisions, work, and competitiveness. Yet tech and business leaders often struggle to navigate the rapid pace of innovation, emerging players, and enterprise providers layering new features – particularly around platforms and integrated intelligence.

AI adoption is accelerating, but infrastructure is becoming the bottleneck. Legacy data centres, fragmented cloud estates, and years of technical debt are slowing innovation, inflating costs, and amplifying risk.

In 2025, AI moved from content generation to autonomous action, with multi-step agentic AI workflows forcing a rethink of work, decisions, and value creation. In 2026, organisations will focus on scaling these systems – balancing speed, control, and trust – while redesigning workflows, decision rights, and value creation.