In 2025, depending on who you ask, artificial intelligence either became the tech industry’s most prized asset or its weakest link. AI is now core infrastructure at large and small companies, while government regulators, energy providers, and some non-technical industries have struggled to catch up.
Making predictions can be a fool’s errand; in October 2022, outside of OpenAI, who would have guessed the splash ChatGPT’s release was about to make? But the stage is set for so many possibilities in 2026 that BetaKit couldn’t help but ask: what happens next?
So, we reached out to some of the smartest Canadians across the tech industry—including founders, funders, boosters, and critics—to ask them what they’re watching this year when it comes to AI. Are they excited, worried, or just plain curious about what 2026 holds? Here’s what they told us.
BetaKit does not endorse any of the predictions we have solicited. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
AI will get boring
“I’ll be watching the normalization of AI beyond the current hype cycle. I expect LLMs to evolve into ‘just another channel.’ It’ll be disruptive but not world-ending, similar to how social media emerged in the 2000s, and mobile in the 2010s.”
—Andrew Lockhead, CEO of Stay22, a monetization platform for travel and event booking
It will become even more ubiquitous
“We’ve noticed more locals wanting to create new startups because the AI tools available are making it easier to build something in the tech space.”
—Ziad Sahid, executive director of Tech Yukon
And much more specific
“AI is making building easier and expectations sharper. People want products and communities tailored to their exact situation. The companies that thrive in 2026 will be the ones that pick a lane and go all-in on serving it.”
—Tate Hackert, co-founder of financial platform ZayZoon
“AI’s next wave will be vertical, where companies will shift from using broad AI tools to industry-specific solutions.”
—Qaiser Habib, head of engineering for data cloud company Snowflake Canada
“We’re watching advances in ‘physical AI’, from robotics to drones.”
—Brendan Cooper, partner and national co-leader for Deloitte Canada’s Technology Fast 50 program
“We won’t be surprised to see a new social media/dating site that goes through users’ chat history … and creates content/customization/matching based on that. You know much more about a person through their convo with ChatGPT than their therapists.”
—Mai Trinh and Gabriel Ravacci, co-founders of data-centre billing software Internet Backyard
Training (for both people and AI) will be key
“One key area where a whole-of-society investment and approach will be required fast is AI equity and AI literacy for all. AI adoption and implementation do not only move at the speed of trust, but especially at the speed of literacy.”
—Ulrike Bahr-Gedalia, former senior director of tech at Canadian Chamber of Commerce
“Robots don’t fail because their servos are weak. They fail because they don’t know what to do when the world behaves unexpectedly. The first humanoid robot…will come from whoever trains it best.”
—Charles Wong, CEO and co-founder of simulated training company Bifrost AI
AI will be used more by bad actors
“Adversaries will use automation to compress the time from discovery to exploitation, then aim prompt injection and tool misuse at [AI] agents.”
—Dave Lewis, Global Advisory CISO of password-manager 1Password
“AI agent identities will become a defining security challenge for Canadian organizations. As companies deploy more autonomous AI agents to handle sensitive data and critical decisions, we’ll see a necessary shift from traditional human-centric identity management to comprehensive AI identity governance.”
—Ryan Sydor, area VP at identity authenticator Okta Canada
Public and private institutions will face greater scrutiny
“I’ll be watching whether Canada starts using AI in a meaningful way inside the government, and moving beyond pilots to real deployment that makes the government faster, cheaper, and more capable.”
—Lucy Hargreaves, CEO of advocacy group Build Canada
“Minister Solomon has promised new AI and privacy rules, but their recent efforts don’t inspire much confidence. New regulations with consumer safeguards will need to help Canadian companies scale and innovate, not bog them down or create friction with our trading partners.”
—Josh Tabish, senior director for Canada at tech policy advocacy group Chamber of Progress
“What I’m watching in 2026 isn’t any single policy, but whether governments get better at stress-testing decisions against the national interest. That means caring about whether and how new laws and investments reduce our dependence on foreign platforms, and whether they keep IP, data, and decision-making power here, or whether they trade long-term sovereignty for short-term convenience. Those trade-offs are about to matter a whole lot more.”
—Vass Bednar, managing director of policy institute Canadian SHIELD Institute
“We’re on the cusp of AI inference becoming far more local, moving from massive data centres to smaller cloud environments and enterprise hardware. This shift will inevitably put the billions spent on hyperscale infrastructure under scrutiny and raise tough questions about whether Canada’s current strategy will position us as a global leader or leave us trailing behind.”
—Mark Doble, founder and CEO of legal intelligence platform Alexi
“By 2026, customers won’t judge companies only on speed or convenience. They’ll judge whether the AI operating on their behalf is trustworthy. That trust will surface in visible ways: ‘responsible AI’ indicators on websites, vendor contracts designed for auditability, and CX metrics that include explainability, transparency, and human override.”
—Jeff Fettes, CEO of Laivly, a Winnipeg-based enterprise AI platform
We’ll be forced to consider who AI leaves behind
“I’m excited about the velocity of innovation in AI, but I’m equally concerned about who’s benefiting from it and who’s being left out. Women currently hold a small fraction of AI development roles, yet their jobs are among the most exposed to automation.”
—April Hicke, founder and CEO of Toast, a recruiting firm supporting women in tech
“The real opportunity in 2026 isn’t just technological, it’s societal. We need to make sure AI creates access, supports the people doing the adapting, and helps us build more equitable workplaces. If it only benefits the usual suspects, we’ve missed the point.”
—Sarah Stockdale, founder and CEO of online growth community Growclass
AI’s next bottleneck won’t be chips, but electricity
“The US faces an approximate 42-gigawatt power capacity shortfall for AI build-outs through 2028, making power access the new strategic advantage in tech. Hyperscalers are now signing nuclear, geothermal, and on-site generation deals to secure capacity.”
—Martin Toner, analyst at ATB Capital Markets
Energy consumption will become a (bigger) political issue
“Data centres have been treated as a part of the AI story, but they’ve become a story in their own right. There are the energy and water demands, community impacts, and questions about whether it really makes sense to be building so many. It increasingly looks like their contribution to higher power bills is poised to become a major issue in the US midterm elections in November 2026.”
—Paris Marx, tech critic, author, and host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us
AI will be used for environmental causes, too
“AI won’t magically identify every sapling from space in 2026, but it will integrate messy, real-world data streams into one coherent picture. Tech, sensors, cameras and more will be stitched together into continuous signals to track [tree] survival rates, canopy recovery trajectories, early stress alerts, and biodiversity indicators.”
—Derrick Emsley, CEO of Veritree, which helps businesses track environmental goals
The cost-benefit math will change
“AI promises immense opportunity—but also the risk of boom-and-bust cycles as startups pivot, valuations fluctuate, and untested business models face intense scrutiny.
“Later-stage VCs rightly demand rigorous milestones and metrics, yet in our risk-averse market, these benchmarks are increasingly unmet…I’ll be watching which founders can successfully translate AI advances into defensible, revenue-generating business models, and which angel networks can provide the guidance, connections, and credibility needed to stabilize these wobbly-kneed ventures until they can run on their own.”
—Danielle Graham, co-founder of The Firehood, an angel-stage network for women in tech
“As AI adoption accelerates, ‘tech debt’ will become a major pain point for businesses, particularly as the return on investment on AI remains elusive.”
—Sam Jenkins, managing partner of Punchcard, a digital innovation consultancy firm
“2026 will move the AI conversation past optimism and into a reckoning over value capture. Even if AI delivers strong GDP growth, it won’t matter if the upside accrues to a small group of platform owners.”
—Daniel Eberhard, founder and CEO of money management app Koho
“The AI boom has brought with it an overwhelming proliferation of AI tools and platforms, each promising to deliver specific gains and productivity. We’re now reaching a tipping point. In 2026, AI will be judged not by how many tools it adds, but by how many it replaces.”
—Shannon Bell, executive VP, chief digital officer and chief information officer, OpenText
The AI bubble will pop
“There will be a hard split in 2026: companies like Google and Microsoft will dominate because they’re actually shipping AI products, while pure LLM players like OpenAI and Anthropic will fall into a race to the bottom.”
—Daniel Wigdor, co-founder and CEO of AI venture studio AXL
“There is an AI bubble, and when it pops, it will create new opportunities for brands to capture value, and dramatically lower barriers to entry for software startups across Canada’s tech ecosystem…We’ll see an explosion of new companies launching faster and leaner than ever before.
“Tech giants like OpenAI will need to monetize and turn a profit. When that happens, they’ll fall back on the familiar advertising models: intent-based lead generation, like Google, and discovery-based placement ads, like Instagram. Ironically, these will drive traffic back to the open web, to publishers, creators, and businesses, and won’t trap users in AI interfaces.”
—Andrew Lockhead, CEO of Stay22, a monetization platform for travel and event booking
Human touch will still matter
“We’ll see human pushback as AI slop overruns the internet and OpenAI addicts us with ‘porngpt,’ driving the rise of human-only spaces.”
—David Usher, lead singer of Moist and founder of Reimagine AI
“We can anticipate AI being built directly into workflows, decision making, and service delivery, but human creativity, judgement, and management will remain at the forefront of these changes.
“I think the most important thing to remember going into this year is Canada’s big advantage is trust. Firms that can deploy AI responsibly, govern it effectively, and stand behind its outcomes will stand out and make an impact.”
—Bill Syrros, national AI leader at BDO Canada
“What was clear in 2025 will still be important in 2026: in-person connection is what gets things done.”
—Jesse Rodgers, founder of tech community Builders Club
For a few bonus predictions and a recap of what predictions came true this year, listen to BetaKit’s latest podcast episode on the biggest tech questions heading into 2026.
Feature illustration courtesy Madison McLauchlan for BetaKit.