2026: Nobody Has Any Idea What’s Coming Next

For the first time in a long time, the tech industry has no clear path forward. AI is already cooling off as we head into 2026. The low-hanging fruit has been picked, the economic realities are catching up, and the hype cycle is running out of oxygen. But what happens next? Honestly, nobody knows.

In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Microsoft dominated the direction of the tech world. By the mid-2000s, they had clearly run out of ideas. As Microsoft entered its full malaise era and Steve Ballmer was insisting the iPhone would fail, Apple, Google, and Facebook were exploding. A new era had begun.

Today, almost every major tech company is in its own version of that malaise. They dabbled in blockchains and NFTs, took a half-step into VR (shocking that it went nowhere, right?), and now they’ve all settled on AI. Is AI a great bet? Not really, but they don’t have anything else big enough to move the needle. These companies are so massive that only something with AI-scale hype can meet Wall Street’s expectations. And AI is the only card they currently have to play.

This has historical precedents. The aerospace industry experienced a similar explosion through the mid part of the 20th century. Then that progress slowed. Progress continues today, but nothing they produce is truly revolutionary anymore. Planes still look like planes from the ’70s. Rockets still look like rockets from the ’60s. The major players consolidated into a handful of giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Those companies cannot do anything particularly revolutionary because they are bound by real limitations of science and technology. 

SpaceX is an exception that proves the rule. By the time it arrived, everyone in aerospace knew launch vehicles were massively overpriced for what they were. Technologically, SpaceX did nothing fundamentally new. They simply applied modern engineering to an old problem and made the same thing cheaper. The incumbents had spent so long telling everyone else how hard rocketry was that they convinced themselves it really was that hard. So, when a newcomer came around and did the same thing for a fraction of the cost, they were completely unprepared. 

Today, consumers are (relatively) satisfied with their tech. Microsoft hit its own stagnation point when Windows XP gave people everything they realistically needed. After XP, every OS change felt more like a nuisance than an innovation. Microsoft kept marching forward, but it drifted out of step with what customers actually wanted, just in time for Apple, Google, and others to change the game.

We’re in that same moment again. Big Tech is out of sync with the consumer, and they don’t have an obvious next act.

So, what’s coming? Are we at the end of a 300-year technological revolution? Probably not. There’s still low-hanging fruit out there, real, society-shifting opportunities hiding in plain sight.

Here are three (maybe crazy) ideas that could reshape the world, listed from smallest impact to largest:

1. Super-Cheap Electric Cars

Not Tesla clones. Not highway cruisers.

I mean ultra-low-cost electric vehicles that aren’t highway-certified and designed strictly for neighborhoods, local errands, and short-distance mobility.

Automakers can build this for under $5,000, and it would be transformative.

Mobility is a social good. The easier it is for people to move freely, the more access they have to jobs, education, independence, and opportunity. The best way to maximize that social good is the most mobility for the lowest cost. A tiny, cheap EV is the perfect candidate.

2. Industrialization of Space

The space industry is inspiring, but economically it’s still mostly ornamental.

Launching mass into orbit adds enormous cost; Earth’s gravity well acts like a permanent tariff. Most satellites don’t produce economic value; they fulfill scientific, military, or observational roles, not industrial ones.

I’m suggesting a completely self-sustained economy outside of earth in space. If we can eventually manufacture outside Earth’s gravity well, using materials already there, and use what we create in space; that’s the single largest untapped economic opportunity in human history. 

And yes, there is a lot of material floating around out there.

3. Nuclear Power (Specifically Fast Breeder Reactors)

It’s borderline insane that we haven’t embraced modern nuclear power.

In the ’60s, building both rockets and nuclear reactors was extremely difficult. Today, rockets have become cheap enough that billionaires casually launch them.

Nuclear reactors? Still locked behind decades-old fears, political pressure, regulatory complexity. And honestly, that oversight is appropriate. We should not have random people building nuclear reactors.

But we’re trapped by outdated assumptions. With modern engineering, we could build inherently safe fast breeder reactors that produce minimal waste and deliver incredibly cheap, clean energy. We’re acting like the space industry in the early ’90s, insisting everything is impossibly difficult long after the technology has caught up.

For the same amount of money the world is currently pouring into AI, we could be building a next-generation energy infrastructure that genuinely transforms society.

Looking Ahead

When I look at Big Tech today, I don’t see engines of world-changing innovation anymore. I see companies optimizing existing products, milking established markets, and betting everything on technology that’s already slowing down.

Software and tech changed the world because it brought information to everyone everywhere. That has, for all the good and bad it has created, changed society and humanity forever. There is not a second act to that though; instead, it is now the foundation for the next thing. There are real world-changing technologies out there. Which one will we embrace?

About the Author: Chris Wardman, founder of Boston Hardware Studios, serves as CTO and embedded systems expert, helping organizations bridge the gap between early prototypes and scalable, manufacturable products. He leads hardware/software integration across industries—from robotics and satellites to drones and autonomous systems—building the processes, teams, and technical frameworks that enable companies to innovate faster and bring complex products to market more quickly and capably.