Outlook 2026: The Business Strategies That Will Shape The Tech Trajectory

AI has been a curious tech trend. Unlike cloud or virtualisation before it, it has vaulted into the boardroom at unprecedented speed. Instead of IT teams lobbying for investment, boards have been the ones pushing for accelerated AI delivery, often faster than systems or strategies were designed to support.

This urgency has come with consequences. MIT's finding that 95 per cent of AI projects never move beyond the pilot stage still hangs over the industry, particularly in the Middle East where digital transformation is advancing rapidly. Yet this reality check has also been useful. It has forced leaders to think more critically about not just how quickly they adopt new technologies, but why, and whether their infrastructure, processes and cultures are ready for the shifts that AI and modern data strategies demand.

2026 is set to bring more measured, sustainable and ultimately, more rewarding progress, especially across the Gulf where ambition remains high but expectations around ROI are sharper than ever. Here are the business led strategies we can expect to see take shape.

Realism and repatriation will define AI in 2026

The overexcitement era is over and organisations are much more realistic about what AI projects they will start or continue. Business leaders have three roles: 1) to increase profitability 2) to grow the business and 3) to mitigate risk. AI provides a way to succeed with all of these - if it is implemented properly. The possibilities AI brings in terms of making processes more effective, automating repetitive tasks, deepening knowledge of customers and streamlining operations are huge. But, organisations are overwhelmed with choice and individual solutions. 2026 will bring strong consolidation of AI estates. AI projects which enable and bolster the three roles and demonstrate ROI, will be the only ones which will be green lit in 2026.

As foundation model capabilities leapfrog every few months and cost/performance curves shift unpredictably, enterprises will no longer gain advantage by scaling static AI systems. Instead, the winners will implement infrastructure that allows them to:

● Swap models and inference providers within weeks

● Orchestrate workloads across cloud, on-prem, and edge, based on cost and capability

● Absorb rapid changes in GPU hardware, quantisation formats, and model architectures

● Redeploy AI copilots or agents to production multiple times per quarter

In 2026, competitive advantage won't come from how large your AI infrastructure is, but how quickly you can adapt it.

The other element that will define the new year is the massive repatriation we'll see. While cloud has proven its value for testing AI deployments, organisations will test quickly, and bring workloads back on premise much faster than before. Edge data centres will also play a key part in modernisation.

This repatriation is being driven by data sovereignty issues which will force business leaders to be more intentional in the new year about where their data is and who has access and control over it. Data sovereignty will drive where data sits, where training occurs and will extend further into business to how supply chains are getting built.

Data should get peak protection

Data is the key to business success but if a company can't access or use its data, operations grind to a halt as we've seen with the high profile hacks which took place globally in the last year. The importance of cyber resiliency will become one of the vital business drivers next year - the ability to withstand and recover quickly from a disaster or attack. Organisations realise they need multiple protections in order to achieve proper resiliency. Data is knowledge - and 2026 will be the year leaders truly understand what that means and what is at stake if they aren't properly protected.

Service excellence will define subscription model success

As consumers we all use subscriptions and experience the ease of use, simplicity, and service levels that they bring. However, the business mindset has firmly shifted away from dressed up leasing models towards value-based decisions. Subscriptions which show worth beyond the financial will be the ones which succeed and organisations will judge subscriptions on uptime, response time, agility, transparency - true services.

As savvy procurement teams look at Service Level Agreements and overall ROI, the evolution will continue towards service excellence and subscription will overtake ownership as the dominant model for how organisations fund and deploy digital infrastructure. Faced with economic uncertainty, rapid AI capability changes, and unpredictable compute demand, enterprises will no longer commit to large capex-based or multi-year infrastructure bets.

Instead, they will construct modular, subscription-driven stacks where compute, AI models, storage, cybersecurity, and even industry-specific capabilities can be scaled up or down monthly. This shift allows organisations to redirect workloads, budgets, and markets at the pace of change, making subscription-based architecture a core enabler of resilience and growth.

The C-suite will make diversification mandatory across supply chains, cloud, and GTM.

Diversification will become a non-negotiable priority for business leaders. Escalating geopolitical tension, concentrated digital infrastructure risk, and rising regulatory fragmentation push enterprises to abandon single-market and single-provider dependencies.

C-suites will actively redesign their operating models around multi-market supply chains, multi-cloud and multi-AI-provider architectures, and multi-channel GTM strategies. The goal is explicit: reduce vulnerability to regional shocks while positioning the business to capture growth across both emerging and mature economies.

By broadening their operational, digital, and commercial footprints, enterprises will replace the old“optimise for efficiency” playbook with a new one built on structural resilience.

From hype to hard outcomes

2026 will reward organisations that prioritise adaptability, resilience and clarity of purpose. The year ahead will be defined not by how aggressively businesses invest in AI, but by how intentionally they design the foundations that support it - data architectures that can withstand shocks, infrastructure that can evolve with the pace of innovation, and operating models that remain flexible in an increasingly turbulent world.

The writer is VP - METCA, Pure Storage.

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