If the end of 2025 marks the end of the year of AI, with its many innovations and warnings, 2026 will mark the transition to the age of AI — one that is more strategic and intentional about how to adopt, scale, and work with AI to propel sustainable innovation for both businesses and society.
Rather than being driven by hype cycles or geopolitical rhetoric, we expect business and technology leaders in the Asia Pacific region to focus on strategies that reflect a pragmatic response to the region’s complex economic, regulatory, and cultural landscape. Forrester surveys find that business and tech professionals are saying that they plan to invest in digital sovereignty in the year ahead, setting the pace for large-scale adoption of sovereign AI, cloud, and digital solutions. APAC enterprises are moving beyond experimentation: scaling AI in core functions, preparing for quantum, adopting open-source models, and deploying diverse cloud strategies.
To help APAC leaders decode the impact of market and economic complexities, here are three of our predictions that will shape the APAC business and technology agenda in 2026:
- Sovereignty will shape AI infrastructure choices for half of firms. The rise of “diverse cloud” strategies in ASEAN countries, blending US hyperscalers, Chinese cloud giants, and domestic providers, is a pragmatic response to geopolitical uncertainty and the imperative for national control over foundational infrastructure. Several nations have asserted digital autonomy via regulations that require local data residency and favor regional providers, increasing the influence of sovereignty on buying decisions. APAC tech leaders should prepare to be more sovereign and evaluate their country-specific AI strategies, reassess their cloud and AI vendor portfolios, and prioritize access to sovereign-compliant architectures to stay resilient in the face of shifting domestic policies and geopolitical trends.
- One-third of firms will waste resources on performative IT product shifts. In APAC, increasing the use of AI-enabled software development will be a top IT priority in 2026, rendering traditional software development practices ineffective. A product mindset requires a cultural and structural transformation; this is difficult in APAC, where outsourcing has created “vendor coordination” muscle memory, a slowness to adopt agile practices, and lack of sponsorship. To meet AI aspirations, some CIOs will try to rebrand delivery teams as product teams without changing operating models or aligning to outcomes — a futile, wasteful exercise. APAC leaders should adopt a true product mindset by ensuring that product teams have financial accountability, budget authority, and alignment to business outcomes.
- Four of five local stablecoin launches will fail. Despite high interest, the settlement volume of tokenized real-world assets is expected to remain low, hindered by steep compliance costs. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) continue to gain traction in APAC, while most local stablecoin projects will burn capital and exit. Banks should look beyond the short-lived stablecoin hype and instead prioritize investments in CBDCs, asset tokenization, and tokenized deposits, focusing on proven, scalable use cases.
In 2026, APAC leaders who adapt to regional and cultural influences with clarity and purpose will lead the next wave of innovation.
You can learn how to put these predictions into action during this webinar. Get additional complimentary resources on the Predictions 2026 hub.
This post was written by Principal Analyst Vasupradha Srinivasan and it originally appeared here.
