2026 is the year of AI

AI’s biggest changes in 2026 will not come to the business world but to private life, parenting, and children’s everyday lives. But not in the way you imagine. AI will certainly be adopted more widely in businesses and other organisations, but there it is mainly the next step in development. The biggest changes we will see in private life, in parenting, and in the everyday lives of children and young people.

In 2026 we will begin to see what the consequences are when AI starts to replace the therapist, the trusted friend, the parent, the loved one, or another significant person in someone’s life. We will start to understand what happens when fewer and fewer people read original sources, trusting instead in summaries or synopses written by AI. We will also get the first taste of what it would be like to live in a world where entertainment is largely produced with the help of AI.

Is our society ready for AI?

What changes will AI bring?

In 2026 we are approaching a turning point at which we must choose whether to restrict the use of AI or ensure that all of us understand how it works. Most likely, understanding AI will become a new civic skill without which we will not manage. AI is simply such an easy-to-use tool, and it is natural for humans to choose the easier path if it does not involve significant drawbacks.

It would be easy to paint a dystopian, science-fiction-like picture of the future in which humanity loses its grip on its own destiny. The world already has more than enough pessimism and despair, however.

How should we prepare children for an AI-shaped world?

Instead of fearing, we can hope.

What can we hope for?

I choose to look at the opportunities the situation affords. The opportunity to learn that human connection is irreplaceable. The opportunity to understand how important it is for us to build our worldview on shared truths. The opportunity to appreciate how unique and enriching art and culture created by someone who wants to teach us something truly is.

I hope that at the same time we are able to harness what is perhaps humanity’s greatest invention of recent years for those tasks in which it excels. I wish everyone a good year 2026.

On the societal side of AI I have written more: AI’s possibilities and limits in public services, who really controls the algorithms of online platforms, and digital independence as an answer to our reliance on foreign platforms. Read more in my posts on digitalisation.

Also published in: Kirkkonummen Sanomat, 7 January 2026.