The beginning of a new year typically comes with a burst of optimism, and 2026 is no different. CompTIA’s IT Industry Outlook 2026 finds that businesses mostly feel good about their prospects for the coming year. Nearly four out of five businesses surveyed report positive sentiment for the next 12 months, with most of the remainder having mixed sentiment.
What’s driving the sunny outlook? After weathering a turbulent economy in 2025, many firms are expecting both internal and external factors to drive revenue and profitability. The leading cause for optimism is the prospect of improving internal operations, likely leveraging AI but also building on recent investments in digital transformation. Companies are also expecting to reach new customer segments, thanks to improvements in sales and marketing efforts.
On the flip side, there are also internal and external factors that loom as possible drags on business momentum. Economic uncertainty may linger, with the ripple effects of tariffs possibly leading to lower spending and shrinking profit margins. There also continues to be a shortage of skilled workers; while AI may alleviate pressure in some areas, it requires the proper skills for installation and implementation.
To create the best opportunity for business growth, organizations must capitalize on the major trends driving technology adoption and workforce strategy. CompTIA has identified five areas to watch in 2026 as the world moves forward in the AI era.
Trend #1: The AI push continues…along with the push for organizational value
No self-respecting research analyst would leave AI off a list of trends, so we might as well get it out of the way. AI will continue to dominate the conversation in both the business and the consumer space, with companies in particular doing everything they can to make sure they don’t get left behind.
Previous CompTIA research has found that approximately 70% of businesses place themselves in early stages of AI adoption. Among companies in CompTIA’s IT Industry Outlook, 94% are at least somewhat likely to invest in AI-specific training, addressing skills like prompting/interaction and the use of AI to extend core domain expertise in data analysis or cybersecurity. This heavy investment suggests that many companies will be seeking to aggressively move up the adoption curve.
However, CompTIA’s tracking of earlier tech trends suggests that the path will be choppy. While companies are already anticipating challenges in securing AI systems and building appropriate governance policies, adoption is often derailed by unexpected hurdles, such as infrastructure costs or workflow transformation. Businesses may struggle in scaling AI from a consumer/individual productivity tool to an organization-wide digital asset.
Trend #2: Cybersecurity expands its reach…and training evolves to keep up
Unlike AI, cybersecurity has been a fixture in technology planning for well over a decade. The establishment of dedicated security teams had already begun by the time cloud systems became prevalent, and migration into those systems led many firms to realize the level of priority and degree of specialization they needed to place on cybersecurity.
Moving forward, cybersecurity will continue to expand its footprint. In addition to new techniques for securing AI systems and new awareness of AI-enabled threats, businesses must also contend with ensuring the privacy of data being collected and securing their operational technology. That’s all before considering what changes may be required once quantum computing redefines cryptography.
The highly dualistic nature of cybersecurity—balancing offense and defense, building strong strategies while staying agile enough to react—creates a unique challenge for skill-building. Although 55% of companies expect to purchase and deliver internal training for their staff, the nature of this training is an open question. Tabletop exercises, simulations, and cyber ranges are some of the options being explored to provide the best real-time training for a highly dynamic field.
Trend #3: Businesses double down on data practices…building toward strategic objectives
The discipline of data is the youngest standalone technology domain, with many firms only recently building dedicated teams of data specialists. Most of the motivation for this activity has come in the past few years, as companies have gained access to tools that allow them to handle different types of datasets and perform more advanced analysis.
This short history explains the levels of inexperience that most companies report in their data practices. The largest percentage reporting “highly capable” for any data discipline is 52% for data security, and it goes down from there—51% for data analytics, 45% for data governance, 42% for data architecture. To capitalize on this abundant resource, organizations will need to understand their data processes at a granular level and develop the necessary skills for success.
One of the reasons that data management and analysis is so critical is that data drives broader objectives. Aside from training the AI tools that are in such high demand, another example of a data-driven initiative is automation. Only 28% of companies say they are exactly where they want to be with automation, hampered by data-centric challenges such as having sufficient data to describe business processes and having the proper connections between IT systems to link all the corporate data silos.
Trend #4: Automation drives workflow renovation…with strong technical teams behind the effort
Of course, automation is not a goal that businesses have only set recently. In fact, automation may be one of the original goals of IT, and companies have been chasing this holy grail for many decades. It doesn’t help that IT is getting more and more complex, but that’s also a prime reason to make automation an organizational imperative.
Given its long legacy, it’s no surprise to see that embedded capabilities within IT tools are the top method of automating workflow. Generative AI is quickly becoming a strong option here, but the key is having oversight and integration of all the tools being employed across the organization. Digital transformation has created a complex web of tools and systems in modern businesses, and automating processes is no easy task.
This is why companies continue to invest in their technology teams. Even as automation simplifies work and staff become more tech-savvy, 83% of companies plan to build their tech support skills to handle more complicated first-line issues. Beyond tech support, a strong majority of companies rate each technical function as critical or moderately important for building and improving digital workflow, from hard-core technical professionals to technical project managers and functional managers.
Trend #5: Workforce pipelines become a focal point…as companies translate skills to tasks
Identifying the technical functions as critical is one thing; building a robust team is another. For years, companies have wrestled with a labor pool that is insufficient to meet the growing demands for digital talent. In many cases, firms have wanted to move quickly and acquire the skills they need in the moment, even if that means focusing on experienced professional hires rather than hiring early career candidates and building the roster from within.
Once again, AI is a double-edged sword. AI capabilities may offload some of the demand for technical expertise, but AI will initially be most effective at handling lower-level tasks, exacerbating the dearth of early career workers who can then become architects and managers. Training is still a top option for closing skill gaps, with 64% of companies planning to pursue training for existing employees, but that training should be part of a comprehensive workforce development strategy rather than a targeted quick fix.
The way that many organizations are approaching their workforce needs is through a skills-based methodology. This approach promises more finely tuned results than previous methods of career development, but it still comes with some caveats. In addition to fully cataloging the detailed skills that are necessary, companies are also finding that they must understand the ability of candidates or existing employees to perform tasks using the skills that they acquire.
2026 may not present the same degree of turbulence and confusion as 2025, but it will still come with its own challenges. Many of these will be new versions of longstanding difficulties: determining the total cost of ownership for new technology, ensuring efficiency with new investments, and maintaining a strong and engaged workforce. The common thread for addressing these concerns is skills, and the companies that unlock their workforce’s potential will also be the ones that unlock future success.
Ready for what 2026 holds? Read and download the full CompTIA IT Industry Outlook 2026 report for the key trends and analysis.