Industrial Transformation Leaders’ Series: 2026 Predictions

Executive Summary

As fractured supply chains, unstable energy markets, expanding use of AI and robotics, shrinking labour pools and unpredictable policy shifts become the norm, traditional operating models will lag behind industrial leaders’ needs and expectations. Organizations will prioritize responsive systems and resilience-first models in order to achieve one of the year’s key goals: building industrial agility.

Our predictions for 2026 guide is designed to help asset maintenance, reliability and operations leaders navigate these expectations, offering a glimpse of what to expect in the year ahead.


 

About the Authors

Malavika Tohani

Malavika Tohani

VP Research

Malavika is a VP Research at Verdantix, guiding research that explores how digital technologies and services are reshaping industrial operations to become safer, more efficien...

View Profile
Kiran Darmasseelane

Kiran Darmasseelane

Senior Manager

Kiran is a Senior Manager at Verdantix, delivering data-driven insights on emerging technologies and global market trends for asset-intensive sectors such as energy, manufactu...

Oliver Bridges

Oliver Bridges

Industry Analyst

Olly is an Industry Analyst in the Verdantix Industrial Transformation practice, where he leads research on asset lifecycle management (ALM) software. He helps asset-intensive...

View Profile

Other related content

Webinar
Manufacturing Operations Management
Industrial Transformation Leaders
EHSQ Corporate Leaders
EHS Specialist Software
EHS Software & Services
Asset Maintenance Software
Asset Performance Management Software
Process Safety Management Software: Clo...

Process safety incidents happen when risk signals go unrecognised in time to act. The challenge for many organisations is that their software is built to record what occurred rathe...

Upcoming / 03 November, 2026

Webinar
Industrial Transformation Leaders
What It Takes To Scale Reliability Acro...

Many industrial organisations can point to a site where their reliability programme has delivered clear results. Replicating that success elsewhere is far more challenging. Differe...

Upcoming / 29 October, 2026

Webinar
Quality Management Software
Manufacturing Operations Management
Industrial Transformation Leaders
Industrial Design Engineering Software
Industrial Analytics & Data Management
Digital Transformation Leaders
Asset Maintenance Software
AI Platforms & Applications
Intelligent Manufacturing In 2027: How ...

Manufacturing is entering a new phase of transformation. Investment in AI, computer vision and connected technologies is accelerating, shaped in part by the renewed push toward dom...

Upcoming / 20 October, 2026

Blog
Industrial Transformation Leaders
AMD's World Labs Deal Puts Spatial Inte...

On September 28, 2026, AMD agreed to buy World Labs, Fei-Fei Li's spatial intelligence start-up, in an all-stock deal worth about $8.2 billion – its second-largest acquisition afte...

09 October, 2026

Blog
Industrial Transformation Leaders
Commodity Price Swings Are Testing FMCG...

Raw material prices are moving faster than the ability of FMCG manufacturers to reset their production plans. Cocoa futures hit a record $12,565 per tonne in December 2024, accordi...

30 September, 2026

Webinar
Industrial Transformation Leaders
Asset Performance Management Software
Asset Maintenance Software
How To Build A Business Case For Indust...

Industrial organizations are under increasing pressure to improve asset performance, workforce productivity and operational resilience. To address these challenges, many organizati...

30 September, 2026