Many emerging technologies are shaping our future, and experts predict that AI will be the most transformative in the near future. Julie Ask, analyst, consultant and technology futurist at Julie Ask Advisory, said the future evolution of AI will occur rapidly. This means organizations, especially technology vendors and software manufacturers, need to act quickly to take full advantage of advances in AI or risk falling behind.
AI will continue to evolve in the form of wearables, physical AI, robotics, and even omniscient intelligence. The potential for AI is vast, but business leaders must also prepare for breakthroughs from other emerging technologies.
According to experts, organizations have two options. Adapt to the future, embrace new technology beyond proof-of-concept experiments, or risk becoming obsolete.
What does the future of AI look like?
Mark Bünger, co-founder and CTO of Futurist Systems, an AI and automation consulting firm and design studio, says LLMs and GenAI will become “business as usual” over the next two years or so. “Right now… everyone is trying to figure it out, but by then everyone will have figured it out,” he said.
Bunger also said he expects LLM’s security to improve. He compared that evolution to the evolution of mobile device security, which quickly evolved to enterprise grade once organizations started adopting it.
IT executives can also expect other advances in AI, including the ability to create 3D representations of the physical environment, Bunger said. He said self-driving cars, industrial equipment used in medicine and factories, and other robots will be able to use these 3D representations to better understand their spatial environments. AI also takes greater advantage of network graph databases, specialized NoSQL data stores that use graph theory to structure, query, and analyze data to improve accuracy and expand applicability to more use cases.
Ask, which helps clients understand and address the impact of emerging technologies, said advances in how companies use AI in analytics will be among the most impactful. These changes will drive better and more accurate decision-making across all industry sectors.
Deloitte CTO Bill Briggs said advances in AI, and more specifically AI agents, are on the horizon. He said executives will feel more pressure to move beyond the proof-of-concept purgatory many currently find themselves in and start scaling up AI efforts that deliver quantitative benefits. Briggs said this is happening as many companies are “daringly rethinking the way they do things.”
Briggs also highlighted how AI in robotics is advancing. “We’re seeing more investment in the intelligent part,” he said, adding that much of the work is being done around specialized form factors.
Of course, many industries, such as manufacturing, have been using robots for decades. However, experts predict that over the next few years, organizations will be able to train using natural language and simulated environments, making adoption faster, easier, and more common. And as robots become more intelligent, they will be able to work side-by-side with humans, rather than in the controlled environments in which they commonly work today.
Corporate leaders must consider how to incorporate [emerging technology] Power your products and give your employees new superpowers to stay competitive.
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Emerging technologies to watch
According to the futurists we spoke with, these are five emerging technologies that technology executives need to be aware of and prepare for in order to stay competitive in the future.
edge computing
Edge computing allows businesses to process data at the edge, as close to the source as possible. This improves bandwidth, reduces latency, and alleviates congestion. These considerations are ideal for organizations running AI models in edge environments to improve model performance.
Briggs said he is looking forward to improved computing power, especially at the edge. Bunger predicted that companies will bring more LLMs locally “for practical reasons.” He also said that an increase in AI at the edge is generally expected, as highly efficient, specialized hardware and compact models make it more feasible.
Ask said he is advising executives to focus on improvements in edge computing, which he said will “give us massive amounts of computing power and change the way we work and live.” As companies increase their investment in and reliance on AI, large amounts of computing power will be essential to maintaining a competitive advantage.
Omniscience and Earth Intelligence
Bill Ray, distinguished vice president analyst and head of research at Gartner, said another area to focus on is global intelligence. Earth Intelligence uses AI and machine learning to analyze satellite imagery and other Earth observation data to create actionable insights that executives can use.
For example, Earth-i uses this technology to monitor copper and nickel smelters around the world. For futures traders, this information could be useful, Ray said. In addition, retailers can use Earth Intelligence technology to research new store sites, vendors to find new sources of raw materials, farmers to study crop growth patterns, and landowners to find out which properties are leaking heat.
”[Gartner has] “The policy is that all companies should use Earth’s intelligence, but only some companies are currently using it,” Ray said.
Briggs predicted that information and intelligence would become omniscient. For example, utilities will be able to deploy drones to inspect power lines and systems, analyze data such as inspection, weather, and tree growth data, model potential power outages and other risks, and identify and take remedial actions.
quantum technology
Quantum computing aims to significantly increase computational power using the principles of quantum physics. Potential use cases include advanced modeling in manufacturing, finance, and pharmaceuticals. Quantum is also used to optimize AI and machine learning models, enabling faster processing and analysis of datasets.
Quantum sensing is one such technology on the horizon, Ray said. This is an advanced sensor technology that uses quantum mechanical properties such as superposition and entanglement to measure with atomic level precision. Ray said the technology has applications in multiple industries, including healthcare, mining and defense.
Quantum practicality has not yet been achieved, but experts predict it could happen as early as the 2030s.
Simulation and digital twin
Another notable technology is intelligent simulation. That “is going to be very important,” Ray said. Intelligent simulation will allow organizations, executives, workers and people in everyday life to simulate different situations, such as when creating a new recipe, moving furniture to a new office, or having a pre-conversation, he added.
Other anticipated advances include autonomous commerce, where agents automatically process customer purchases and orders, and seller-side agents handle fulfillment and shipping. A digital twin of the buyer, or “a true representation of the person,” facilitates these transactions, Bunger said.
wearables, displays, interfaces
Deloitte’s Briggs said he is looking forward to improvements in wearables. In the health sector alone, wearable technology is expected to enable improved blood sugar monitoring, smart contact lenses that sense and manage eye health, and electronic tattoos that non-invasively collect physiological and psychological health data.
The way people interact with technology will become simpler and more natural, Briggs said, noting that it has already evolved from using punch cards to typing and now swiping. Interacting with technology will no longer feel uncomfortable, he says.
Ask predicts that advancements in head-up display technology will bring about major changes for workers, especially front-line workers, and perhaps even the way the public interacts with the world. These displays, which project data directly into the user’s line of sight, will integrate more augmented reality technology, giving users a more accurate view of their surroundings and reducing the cognitive load of relying on data from advanced recognition sensors.
Opportunities and challenges ahead
All of these advances present opportunities for organizations looking to gain disruptive capabilities. They also create risks and challenges for those who use them to drive business strategies. Companies that fail to adapt risk disappearing.
Given the existential threat of falling behind emerging technologies, executives must start thinking about how tomorrow’s technology will impact their organizations. This is a difficult job, one many executives admit they struggle with.
In KPMG’s 2026 Adaptability Index of 300 U.S. public and private sector executives and senior leaders, 81% reported that their boards or owners have increased expectations for their organizations’ ability to adapt and respond to disruption.
Meanwhile, the KPMG Global Tech Report 2026 found that a majority of 2,500 survey respondents said they need to take more risks with emerging technologies to stay relevant.
Ask agreed, saying organizations must be bold.
“Corporate leaders need to consider how they include their companies. [emerging technology] To maintain the competitiveness of our products. How to use it within your company to add power to your functions, speed up workflows, and give your employees new superpowers. How to manage rising costs. And all the new security and governance that comes with that. “For most executives today, it’s all-consuming,” she said.
Mary K. Pratt is an award-winning freelance journalist specializing in enterprise IT, cybersecurity strategy, and data management.
