11 predictions for 2026

As 2024 came to a close, I noted here that two big stories were beginning to crowd out everything else in tech: the rapid development and diffusion of artificial intelligence, and the shifting policies of tech giants as they prepared for life under a re-elected President Trump.

Twelve months later, those stories did indeed define the year here at Platformer. On the product side, this year saw the first consumer agents, deep research, Google’s AI mode, OpenAI’s hardware ambitions, Sora, and the Atlas browser, among other key developments. 

Meanwhile, AI policy got both looser and more restrictive. Frontier AI labs eagerly made deals with the US military, reversing long-held policies against building weapons of war, and began leaning into adult content, from erotica in ChatGPT to Grok’s sexbot companion. On the other hand, amid rising evidence that chatbots were fueling a new mental health crisis, AI companies placed new restrictions on teen use and added parental controls.

All that took place against the backdrop of the new Trump administration, whose impact on the tech world was felt almost immediately. The year began with Meta’s surrender to the right on speech issues, a move that included changing its policies to allow for more dehumanizing speech against minority groups. It also killed its DEI program, a move followed by many of its peers, and shut down systems that once prevented the spread of misinformation.

With DOGE, Elon Musk ran the same playbook for cost-cutting in the federal government that he had done previously at Twitter, to devastating effect. The new administration’s embrace of the tech right showed up quickly in its policy proposals, including most notably in its accelerationist position toward AI.

By mid-year, Musk and Trump split. But the broader relationship between Trump and Silicon Valley remained mostly positive — particularly for Meta — despite the fact that the government continued to pursue and antitrust cases against both that company and Google. (Meta won its case; Google lost.)

I spent much of the year feeling increasingly disillusioned by the platforms’ cynical embrace of Trump and how little it seemed to cost them in users or revenue. (Even Tesla stock, which plunged in the wake of DOGE’s outrages, is now up almost 10 percent year over year.) I noted in particular the disquieting silence from trust and safety ...