The 2-Z of 2026 predictions: W

The 2-Z of 2026 technology predictions continues with:

W is for WiFi

"In 2026, enterprises will shift how they operate wireless networks. AIOps will become non-negotiable: multilink operation, wider channels, and deterministic latency will only reach their potential when AI takes over spectrum decisions that humans can’t make fast enough," said Mark Ablett, VP, Asia Pacific and Japan at HPE Networking.

"Continuous learning models will predict congestion, optimise RF behaviour, and reshape channel usage in real
time, making the traditional debates about SSIDs, 'best band', and manual tuning obsolete. Wired and wireless performance will converge not because speeds increase, but because AI will manage the experience as a single, intent-driven fabric." 

RF is an abbreviation for radio frequency, and SSID stands for service set identifier. 

W is also for work 

Personalised plans 

The proliferation of AI copilots within the workplace is being accelerated by intergenerational collaboration. Research from the International Workplace Group (IWG) revealed that 62% of Gen Z employees are coaching older colleagues on how to use AI to boost productivity and efficiency. In turn, 77% of Directors and Senior Directors have said this has boosted productivity levels, while 80% said it unlocked new business opportunities. 

Capitalising on this trend, employers will increasingly use AI and workplace analytics to create “personalised hybrid plans” for each employee, including optimised schedules, ideal collaboration days, and preferred office or coworking locations, said the IWG in a list of 2026 predictions.

Welltech

With 57% of workers saying they’re more likely to disengage when they feel undervalued or micromanaged, companies will put more emphasis on employee wellbeing and flexible work options to raise engagement and remain competitive. As wellbeing becomes a bigger focus, companies are also expected to start using new “well-tech” tools - stress-tracking wearables, AI mental health reminders, and wellness challenges that gamify healthy habits.

Said Mark Dixon, Founder and CEO of IWG: “Continuous improvements in technology including AI and new approaches to training and development will be significant drivers of productivity, engagement, and loyalty, enabling companies to create a future-ready workforce and working environment that propels business growth.

"We will continue to see a fundamental shift in the geography of work with the centre of gravity moving towards local communities. The remarkable advances in cloud technology and videoconferencing software – both vital to enabling effective hybrid working – mean workers no longer need to travel long distances on a daily basis. Innovations in technology will continue to advance in years to come and will radically underline and fuel the flexibility of location."

W is for work: the C-suite

Source: SAS.
Ramanathan.

"In 2026, AI will redraw the balance of power inside Asia’s boardrooms. For the first time, finance and technology will share control of the same transformation agenda, and not always comfortably. According to Gartner, CFOs are increasingly being tasked with owning/co-owning enterprise technology, data, and analytics functions beyond finance," said Deepak Ramanathan, VP, Global Technology Practice at  SAS. 

"That tension will define the next era of transformation; the CFO and CIO will find themselves in a new kind of tighter, more strategic - and often more contentious - partnership. CFOs will lead with ROI discipline, demanding that every algorithm proves its worth, whilst CIOs will be under pressure to deliver trusted, scalable systems that justify every investment.

"Together, they’ll turn AI from an experimental expense into a core operational asset. That overlap might even give rise to a new hybrid executive - the Chief Integration Officer - responsible for turning data and automation into governed, profitable intelligence." 

W is for work: engineering

Source: Siemens
Digital Industries
Software. Teo.

"In 2026, AI will move from experimentation to large-scale implementation. This new phase will demand that businesses empower their engineers to think faster, explore further, and solve problems with greater speed and confidence. Technologies like digital threads, cloud, and the industrial metaverse will offer powerful pathways to do so, and businesses that can bring these technologies together with AI into a unified engineering ecosystem will be best equipped to navigate the challenges ahead," said Alex Teo, VP & MD of of Southeast Asia, Siemens Digital Industries Software.

Teo elaborated that the digital thread will empower more businesses with real-time continuity, which is critical as products become increasingly multi-domain and software-defined. "It is evolving from a collection of disjointed tools into an interconnected system that links data, processes, and decisions across every discipline and phase of development," he said.

"It unifies every stage of the product lifecycle and enables the convergence of the physical and virtual worlds through digital twins. The businesses that adopt it early will enable their engineers to run more comprehensive simulations and better optimise performance before they commit to physical builds."

"Cloud-native platforms are also emerging as essential enablers and will play a greater role in accelerating innovation cycles and lowering barriers to advanced engineering capabilities. The industrial metaverse is also becoming a truly practical engineering environment with 3D graphics collaboration tools empowering teams to collaborate in immersive spaces and engage with high-fidelity digital twins before anything exists physically," he concluded.

The businesses who unify these technologies and capabilities into a cohesive system next year, will be the ones that turn complexity into a competitive advantage.

W is for work: HR

Source: MongoDB. Walther.

Modernisation will act as a hiring advantage in ASEAN’s increasingly competitive talent market, said Thorsten Walther, MD, CXO Advisory Asia at MongoDB. "Developers seek organisations with modern tools, automation, and cloud-native infrastructure; environments where they can innovate and build, rather than maintain ageing systems. For enterprises, adopting these technologies will not only streamline operations but also help attract the best technical talent," he said.

W is for work: sales and marketing 

Shahid Nizami, VP for APAC and GCC at Braze said that the new competitive edge is data agility, which means moving from simply ingesting data to processing rich context, "decoding digital body language at scale". "The most successful brands will treat AI not as a tool for simple content generation, but as intelligent, autonomous agents that are fed by first-party context, guided by brand strategy, and act as a co-pilot," he said. 

"This frees the marketer to be the conductor, focusing their human creativity and empathy on driving real business impact." 

Megan Hughes, MD, JAPAC, HubSpot, said the traditional approach to business growth - acquire customers, close deals, move to the next quarter - is giving way to a more sophisticated model in 2026.
"Businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to reach customers through traditional channels. Research shows that 60% of Google searches now end without a click, as conversational AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini surface answers directly. This shift means acquisition costs are rising and lead volume is declining while buyer behaviour becomes less predictable," she said.

"At the same time, AI is changing the economics across the entire customer lifecycle. What used to require high-touch, manual effort - personalised onboarding, proactive support, expansion plays - can now be automated and personalised at scale. AI makes it possible to deliver tailored experiences to thousands of customers simultaneously, turning retention and expansion from cost centres into scalable growth engines."

Hughes explained that AI now makes it possible to connect every stage of the customer journey so that every customer interaction generates insights that improve the next interaction."The winning businesses in 2026 will be those that master AI across the full lifecycle to acquire customers more efficiently, onboard them seamlessly, retain them proactively, and expand relationships strategically—with each stage informing and improving the others," she said.

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