Follow
Follow
Follow
Follow
News
December 26, 2025 posted by Daniel W. Rasmus for SeriousInsights.com
I don’t like the idea of trends (see Stephen Jay Gould on Trends and Progress: The Problem With Trends), but that doesn’t stop people from searching for the term, or search engines indexing for it because of that, I use it in the title but with the caution that many factors can derail “trends” and a bias toward seeing a trend can blind trend watchers from recognizing other patterns, especially contradictory ones.
In that light, let me say that year-end trend posts are less about prophecy than pattern recognition. The useful question isn’t “What’s next?” It’s “What changed in the operating conditions that will impact decisions I make in the near-term?” For 2026, the answer is blunt: AI stops being a tool story and becomes an infrastructure story. That shift pulls budgets, governance, architecture, skills, geopolitics, and energy into the same room, and they don’t necessarily all get along.
Click through here for Rasmus's early key takeaways to get conversations started on AI Trends 2026: Likely Conditions That Will Make AI in 2026 Feel Different.
About the Author:
Daniel W. Rasmus, the author of Listening to the Future, is a strategist and industry analyst who has helped clients put their future in context. Rasmus uses scenarios to analyze trends in society, technology, economics, the environment, and politics in order to discover implications used to develop and refine products, services, and experiences. He leverages this work and methodology for content development, workshops, and for professional development.
