The future of work demands differentiation, not duplication, and that’s a human job.

BY WILL SWARTS @WILLSWARTS

Photo: Getty Images

No one has a crystal ball, but here’s what I’m seeing as we head into 2026 two major themes in the future of work: AI and leadership. 

AI is everywhere. Every company is AI-fying their products, processes, and workflows often because everyone else is doing it. Instead of using AI to solve a specific problem, we are instead seeing AI for AI’s sake. That’s resulting in more duplication than innovation. The market can’t sustain this level of product redundancy.

We should expect some level of consolidation where larger companies acquire the promising upstarts, while the weaker players become obsolete. This........

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