A few thoughts on how you should approach AI for success in 2026
Well, 2025 was quite a ride. It felt like a roller coaster, in terms of politics, economics, science and culture. Wow. I spent 2025 working with leaders in academia, business and government on how to implement AI in their work.
2025 saw incredible, massive innovation and improvements to AI function. This happened almost quarterly — an astonishing rate of improvement. And this happened before the foundation models have gotten their data centre capacity online. Those giant data centre projects will start to come online in 2026 and 2027. That surge in compute capacity will make the acceleration of AI development breath-taking.
Here are some thoughts as I look ahead to 2026:
AI will play a larger part as people rebuild specific workflows around it. For this to happen, you need to have a much deeper understanding of how AI works than just using it compose and email or correct your grammar. You also need to think deeply about how to specify how you work. As AI research Andrej Karpathy has said (I paraphrase him): “If you can specify it, you can code it. If you can verify it, you can automate it.” That means you have to start defining how you work and thinking very carefully about how your outputs and outcomes are generating value. Once you define that for your workflows, you can start meaningfully introducing AI in them for greater time-saving automation.
AI will start to show real creativity. I recently watched the documentary about how Alpha Go defeated the top-ranked international Go Champ Lee Sedol. It didn’t beat him through brute force, it demonstrated creativity and elegance that went beyond what humans had imagined as possible moves in Go. We will start seeing the foundation models demonstrating this sort of creativity in our daily lives — we will be amazed, delighted and profoundly disconcerted. This means you should think about how you are adding value and how an AI assistant/partner can help enhance and supercharge your creativity and ideation.
A new era of homebrew computing will flourish. I feel an excitement akin to my youth in the 1980s, when I would put together Hypercard databases to track my beloved Toronto Blue Jays and Formula 1 drivers. In those salad days, we would copy and improve upon programs from BYTE Magazine — everything seemed possible. People could start a company in their garage with a home computer and some smart friends. I feel that today’s ability to fine-tune, train and do inference with LLMs locally on your own home computer (assuming you have a good enough graphics card or a M-class Mac loaded with tons of RAM) brings back that era. So, download an LLM onto your home computer and start playing with it.
My advice to you for 2026 — learn AI, not just puttering around the edges of theses system, rather learning them in-depth. This requires some commitment on your part.
Knowing how to use these systems will soon be a base literacy for participating in economic, academic, and online life.
2026 will be a watershed year — AI will accelerate. Get in now and grow with the technology. Waiting for “the tech to mature” is a serious mistake.
Right now, the barrier to entry is low — you can catch up by watching YouTube and LinkedIn tutorials.
In a year, it will be much harder, you will feel you need specific training. In two or three years, it will start to feel insurmountable, as if you need to go back to school.
I strongly suggest that you dive into AI now! It’s fun and accessible, and will change your life and career.
I am happy to help your organization think through these things.
You can come and study with me and other top international experts in the McMaster University MCM program. It’s an exec ed master’s program - you do it while you work full-time. It will change your life and boost your career!
If you would like me to come to you, please do contact me and I can do a guest lecture or 90-minute, half-day, day-long or multi-day training curriculum for you.
If you would like in-depth advice, visioning and strategy on how to deploy AI in your organization, I work with the amazing team of consultants at the Tantalus Group to provide such advice to global corporations, governments and large not-for-profits.