AI Trends in 2026: Key Insights for Leaders

Mar 25, 2026 - MIT Sloan Management Review

---

AI Hype vs. Reality: 2026 — 13-minute video

Beyond the headlines about generative AI, what do leaders really need to know? In this insightful video, AI experts Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean explain why most AI investments aren’t paying off yet — and what leading companies are doing differently.

AI investment continues to fuel the U.S. economy, but many expect it to slow down dramatically in 2026. Agentic AI was the hot topic of 2025, but it remains an expensive early-stage experiment that’s not quite ready for mainstream use. What does this mean for leaders looking to guide their teams?

In this video, MIT Sloan Management Review columnists Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean share their annual predictions about what will be the biggest AI trends in the year ahead. Their outlook:

• Agentic AI still won’t be ready for prime time — and won’t be for a few years.

• The AI bubble is likely to start deflating.

• Generative AI will be reframed primarily as an enterprise resource.

• The role of chief AI officer will continue to rise (even as there’s a continued lack of consensus on reporting structures).

• “AI factories” will accelerate value for the companies that build them — and will be the smartest bet for AI investment.

Video Credits

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management and faculty director of the Metropoulos Institute for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Babson College, and a fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. His latest book is The New Science of Customer Relationships: Delivering the One-to-One Promise With AI (Wiley, 2025).

Randy Bean has been an adviser to Fortune 1000 organizations on data and AI leadership for over four decades. He is the author of Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI (Wiley, 2021).

Leslie Brokaw is a contributing editor at MIT Sloan Management Review.

M. Shawn Read is the multimedia editor at MIT Sloan Management Review.