The company's annual Top IT Insights report reveals key trends in the industry leaders are watching
bluebell, pennsylvania, January 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Unisys (NYSE: UIS) releases the “Top IT Insights for 2026: Navigating the Future of Technology and Business” report, identifying 10 trends that will define the next era of enterprise technology. Based on extensive conversations with industry experts and business leaders, this report provides insights into how AI applications can achieve breakthroughs in repeatable, high-ROI adoption, the technology's impact on the workforce, and its implications for cybersecurity.
“2025 saw a lot of AI hype and conflicting reports about what the technology could accomplish, leaving business leaders wondering, ‘What’s next?’ and ‘When will we start seeing results?’” said Mike Thomson, CEO and president of Unisys. “In 2026, we will see more capabilities in AI, focused on quality rather than cost reduction, and AI applications that deliver reproducible, ROI-focused results.”
10 IT Insights for 2026
- Intensive AI deployments outperform transformation projects
Most AI deployments are not large-scale efforts. Instead, it will be a small, task-based integration that is built into existing processes. These developments use smaller datasets that are easier to clean up, require lower investment thresholds, allow for smoother change management, and yield faster results. - Three AI applications break through as repeatable, high-ROI deployments
After years of experimentation, companies have converged on a small number of reproducible, high-ROI applications. Chatbots, AI coding agents, and AI-driven service assistants for employees and customers will be packaged, measurable, and ready for rapid deployment. This will change the way organizations evaluate and choose investments in AI. - AI investment moves from cost reduction to quality improvement
Early AI programs focused primarily on cost reduction because it was easy to model and sell. In 2026, AI will deliver better quality by measuring how it increases decision confidence, reduces variance, and improves outcomes. Industry leaders say that producing high-quality products increases revenue and improves profit margins for organizations. - Instead of chasing scale, organizations will train AI models on small, task-specific datasets.
The focus is not on generalists or large language models trained on large datasets. Instead, experts and small language models will be trained on cleaner and simplified datasets. In practice, companies will benefit from more fine-tuned industry-specific models, which will be more cost-effective to operate and implement, and deliver more accurate, higher-quality output. - AI automation won't cause mass layoffs, but the number of entry-level coding jobs will shrink.
Despite the rise of automation, large-scale AI-driven layoffs are not expected to materialize until 2026. Organizations know that rapid downsizing can kill change. Instead, leaders will direct productivity gains toward backlog reduction, customer experience, and modernization. However, AI agents will automate mundane coding and further reduce the role of “junior programmers.” - Organizations need to establish post-quantum cryptography strategies
With the arrival of large-scale quantum computers on the horizon, malicious actors are accumulating encrypted data with “collect now, decrypt later” schemes, putting sensitive data at risk. Organizations must prioritize post-quantum cryptography strategies. This includes taking a crypto inventory, establishing mitigation paths, and initiating a phased rollout to align with the new standard. - AI accelerates both cyber attack and defense
Organizations will see AI deployed to their advantage by both attackers and defenders. For attackers, this includes accelerated phishing personalization, deepfakes, and voice spoofing. For defenders, AI not only powers pattern recognition and anomaly detection, but also enhances threat hunting with natural language interfaces and automated responses. The goal for next year is not perfect prevention, but rapid containment, reliable forensics, and resilient recovery. - Organizations are measured on their speed of recovery, not on their prevention of breaches
As the likelihood of a breach continues to increase, businesses must equally invest in rapid recovery and business continuity efforts. The quickest path to resiliency is preparation, such as offline backups, cleanroom rebuild capabilities, and pre-negotiated crisis management vendors and processes. Organizations that can demonstrate recovery capabilities gain competitive advantages in terms of customer confidence, insurance rates, and regulatory relationships. - Data sovereignty requirements drive creation of regional and national clouds
Requirements for sovereignty will move from niche expectations to standard expectations. Governments and regulated industries require data, keys, and in some cases computing resources to remain within national borders, driving the development of regional and national cloud zones and partner ecosystems. Organizations that map sovereignty requirements early and choose platforms with true local control will be better able to handle this complexity than those that treat this complexity as a compliance checkbox. - Organizations optimize workload placement rather than pursuing large-scale cloud migrations
Gone are the days of “lift and shift everything.” Large enterprises have completed large-scale cloud migration efforts and are now operating in a hybrid model. Going forward, the focus will be on fit-for-purpose deployment, private clouds for predictable workloads, sovereign zones for regulated data, and selective rebalancing as needed.
For more information and to download Unisys' 2026 Top IT Insights: Navigating the Future of Technology and Business report, visit Unisys 2026 IT Insights Report.
About Unisys
Unisys is a global technology solutions company that delivers breakthrough advances to the world's leading organizations. Our solutions (cloud, AI, digital workplace, applications, and enterprise computing) help clients challenge the status quo and realize their full potential. To learn how we've been helping clients reach their potential for more than 150 years, visit unisys.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
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