Rapid innovation follows no annual timeline. As 2025 draws to a close, there is still no stopping modern technologies from advancing.
Looking ahead, 2026 will usher in innovations that reshape AI, workforce transformation, and digital infrastructure across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region and beyond.
Agentic AI
Agentic AI is expected to move from experimentation to everyday reality in 2026. For Gavin Barfield, vice president and chief technology officer, Solutions at Salesforce, AI agents will become significantly more prevalent over the coming year.
"The rise of personal AI agents will likely change how we interact with businesses. Agent-to-agent interactions, where autonomous agents communicate, collaborate, and transact without direct human involvement, will become more commonplace," he said.
Beyond efficiency, Barfield believes AI agents will increasingly shape how brands define themselves and engage with customers.
"In 2026, brands may find their identity defined less by their logos or slogans and more by their AI agents. We can envision customisable agents becoming always-on brand ambassadors: intelligent, deeply personalised, and continuously evolving with every single customer interaction," he added.
As a result, customer expectations will evolve. Engagement will no longer be measured solely by speed or convenience, but by how naturally and intelligently AI agents interact with users.
"In this new agent-driven reality, the winning brands will be those whose AI interactions feel less like scripted support and more like a genuinely helpful partner," Barfield added.
He also predicts that agentic AI will outgrow traditional chatbots, particularly through voice-based interactions.
"Agentic voice technology will allow humans to speak to agents in a natural, conversational manner – as if conversing with another human," Barfield said.
While he acknowledges that language diversity (slang, accents, and colloquialisms) remains a challenge, the potential is significant. Agentic voice technology could manage real-time calls, triage contact centre requests, resolve routine issues autonomously, and free up human employees to focus on more complex tasks.
Beyond interfaces, AI agents are also expected to become increasingly ambient.
"We could see AI agents moving from virtual interfaces and being embedded into devices and the physical space, operating unobtrusively and naturally in the background of everyday environments and interactions," he said.
Agentic AI in cybersecurity
In cybersecurity, agentic AI is also poised to play a bigger role in 2026. Dan Schiappa, president, Technology & Services, at Arctic Wolf, said agentic AI represents the next frontier for security operations.
"We will see the growing use of agentic AI taking the lead with human aid, versus human leading with AI aid. This will radically transform how SOCs work by augmenting human expertise with advanced automation and AI, without completely replacing the need for skilled analysts," he predicted.
Despite these advances, Barfield stresses that humans will remain firmly in control of agent-driven systems.
"Crucially, this model ensures humans remain in control. The human role shifts to a high-level supervisor, who leverages AI-powered observability tools to set guardrails," he explained.
Infrastructure and data movement at AI scale
As AI workloads grow, enterprise infrastructure expectations will shift as well. Rodney Kinchington, managing director, Asia-Pacific, Japan and Greater China, BT International, believes AI-scale data movement will redefine network demands.
"In 2026, organisations will realise that AI's impact is no longer confined to isolated use cases; it is reshaping how data is created, moved and consumed across regions. Workloads will become more bursty, more distributed and increasingly dependent on consistent low latency across multiple clouds."
This evolution will intensify demand for secure, reliable, and visible access to data across geographies.
Similarly, Amajit Gupta, MD & Group CEO, Lightstorm, expects AI to redefine network connectivity across APAC.
"By 2026, Asia Pacific's growing data centre footprint will require networks that can adapt to shifting AI workloads, making them elastic, programmable connectivity is the need of the hour."
He added that dynamic routing, bandwidth allocation, and performance consistency across cloud, edge, and colocation environments will become baseline expectations.
Shadow AI risks
However, the acceleration of AI adoption comes with growing risks. In 2026, the rise of unsanctioned AI tools, often referred to as shadow AI, is expected to introduce new cybersecurity blind spots.
CyberArk warned:
"This 'shadow AI' phenomenon will mirror the earlier rise of shadow IT, creating new blind spots for security teams, who will struggle to detect and manage these tools, especially as AI becomes more user-friendly and harder to distinguish from sanctioned solutions."
For organisations in APAC, identity security will be critical in managing these risks.
"As organisations in Hong Kong embrace AI-driven transformation, identity security will define their ability to stay resilient and earn trust," said Sheung Chi Ng, director, Solution Engineering, North Asia, CyberArk.
From managing machine identities to securing autonomous AI agents and unsanctioned tools, the coming year will demand stronger governance frameworks.
Foundational technologies remain critical
Despite rapid AI innovation, foundational technologies will continue to matter. Anand Chakravarthy, vice-president, Advanced Solutions, Asia Pacific & Japan, at Tech Data, noted that demand for hardware and endpoint devices remains strong across APJ.
"Partners in APJ continue to see high demand for hardware and endpoint devices, despite high-growth technology prioritisation," he said.
This sustained demand is driven by regulatory requirements, data sovereignty mandates, and increasing computational needs. As a result, partners will continue to play a vital role in enabling data security, hybrid work, and digital infrastructure in 2026.
The AI skills gap
Skills shortages remain a persistent challenge heading into 2026. According to Chakravarthy, talent constraints will continue to limit organisations’ ability to scale advanced AI and cybersecurity services.
He pointed out that difficulties in retaining or attracting talent in APJ remain high at 79.8%, underscoring the need for more training, enablement, and proof-of-concept support across the ecosystem.
CyberArk’s Ng echoed this concern:
"The competition for cybersecurity professionals, particularly those with expertise in AI, is expected to intensify, mirroring the current race for AI talent."
Looking ahead
There is no slowing the pace of technological change. Each year brings new predictions and shifting priorities, but one constant remains: technology does not replace humans entirely. Instead, it opens new ways of working, boosts productivity, and reshapes how people and organisations connect.
In 2026, that balance between human oversight and intelligent automation will define the next chapter of innovation in APAC.
