2026 will be a transitional year defined by technology ecosystem expansions — multiparty alliances spanning IT, OT, devices, edge and silicon; industrial/physical AI acceleration, especially at the edge and in manufacturing; and strategic bottlenecks as skill shortages and infrastructure gaps slow sovereign AI adoption. TBR expects significant changes in how technology vendors collaborate and compete, which lays the groundwork for broader, more integrated AI ecosystems. This is an optimistic prediction. Multiparty alliances require exceptional leadership, shared understanding of commercial models and transparency among partners, and AI aids only the last of these. The human component remains the most significant roadblock. IT-OT convergence and a surge in connected everything have been a TBR (and broader market) prediction for years, and while “signs point to yes,” as the Magic 8 Ball says, 2026 could be another year of disappointing progress, as hype around physical AI could far outpace reality.

Today, SaaS is far from dead, but it has reached an unmistakable inflection point. The model that reshaped enterprise software over the last 20 years has reached maturity just as a new layer of intelligence is forming above it. The result is a market that still depends on SaaS but no longer treats it as the strategic center of gravity. What once looked like a stable, compounding growth engine now looks more like baseline infrastructure supporting a different kind of workflow. As a result of this shift, the market is wondering whether SaaS applications will continue to define enterprise workflows or whether that role is shifting to AI-native platforms and agentic systems.