2026 trends: What’s next for businesses?

Following our review of 2025, we asked our academics what the next 12 months has in store for business leaders in some key impact areas.

Human values will become more important as AI takes hold

Professor Keiichi Nakata, Director of AI, World of Work Institute

“AI has now passed the ‘peak of inflated expectations’, as characterised by Gartner’s Hype Cycle. What comes next is important for its continued success and movement through disillusionment and enlightenment, towards the ‘plateau of productivity’.

“But getting there is currently complex and compounded by the increased awareness of the environmental impact of AI development and use, and the lack of internationally agreed standards in AI regulation. The innovation versus regulation debate will continue into 2026 and the task for business leaders to make the ‘right’ decisions on AI use will be challenging.

“Just as AI has made us reflect and think about the importance of human values, it will become imperative for business leaders to consider how engagement with AI helps preserve and support what they value as the organisation. This means increasing importance on providing psychological safety and nurturing ethical leadership qualities, including mutual respect, accountability, transparency, and social responsibility in the use of AI.

“Business leaders should not be dazzled or led by AI, but positively and critically engage with it to align it with their business strategy, and prepare their workforce to achieve their mission and goals.”

AI and marketing will become intrinsically linked

Professor Adrian Palmer, Professor of Marketing

“2026 will also see huge opportunities for AI in the world of marketing. Smart companies are already on track to incorporate AI in their processes. Much of this will be focused on behind the scenes processes, such as supply chain efficiencies and speeding up new product development. At the customer interface, AI will face mixed receptions.

“In a world of automation and outsourced decision making by consumers, new questions will be asked about the meaning of being human. We should expect to see new opportunities for goods and services which provide consumers with agency, authenticity and personal connectedness. In a world that is focused on AI, even smarter companies are seeing two steps ahead and anticipating its unexpected challenges and opportunities.”

DEI will not die but undergo a rebrand

Dr Melissa Carr, Director of EDI, World of Work Institute

“Following the events of 2025, moving forward, DEI is less likely to appear as a separate initiative and more as something built into everyday business, even if the specific term is used less openly. Many firms are already relabelling efforts under headings such as ‘culture’, ‘belonging’, ‘responsible business’ or ‘workforce equity’, while continuing the underlying practices.

“In a world where US federal policy is pulling in one direction and other jurisdictions moving in another, we will see multi-national organisations adopting a regional recalibration model: holding a clear global commitment to equity and dignity, but tailoring mechanisms to local context.

“The key for leaders will be whether, five years from now, employees can still see evidence that their organisation takes inequity seriously. In that sense, 2025 has been a stress-test of corporate values, and the organisations that emerge strongest will be those that treat DEI not as a political fashion, but as part of what it now means to be a credible, values-driven, future-focused employer.”

Political risk will become a permanent problem for international trade

Professor Davide Castellani, Professor of International Business

“In 2025, President Trump positioned tariffs as a way to trigger reshoring and attract foreign direct investment. Yet despite a number of investment pledges, few large-scale projects actually materialised. Businesses remain cautious in the face of continued policy uncertainty, and even when firms consider relocating production to the U.S., they must confront a critical and often-overlooked challenge: tariffs raise the cost of imported intermediate goods and capital equipment, which in many modern industries are indispensable.

“Many supply chains today are deeply global and rely heavily on imported components – semiconductors, plastics, electronics, machinery, raw materials. Broad tariffs apply not only to final products but also to these intermediate and capital goods. As a result, building or re-establishing manufacturing operations in the US becomes substantially more expensive. In effect, while a tariff may encourage firms to consider ‘onshore’ production, it simultaneously makes the inputs they need pricier – undermining the very cost advantages that might justify reshoring.

“In short: tariffs may create a headline promise of reshoring, but the underlying economics and structural realities of global supply chains mean tariffs often become a net deterrent – raising production costs, increasing risk, and discouraging real investment.

“As we move into 2026, the most resilient firms will be those planning for ongoing volatility – diversifying suppliers, investing in supply-chain visibility, and treating political risk as a permanent strategic factor rather than a short-term disruption.”

Boards could hold more power under new proposals

Dr Filipe Morais, Lecturer in Governance

“On 11 December 2025, the US government issued an executive order signed by Donald Trump directing the Securities and Exchange Commission to clamp down on existing provisions regarding proxy advisors, including a revision of Rule 14a-8 governing shareholder proxy proposals.

“This move represents a further dismantling of the notion that companies should be managed for the long term and take due account of a broader stakeholder base. The ‘Big Three’ – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – now hold significant stakes in the vast majority of U.S. equities, granting them considerable influence in boardrooms.

“Governance, however, is fundamentally about checks and balances on power concentration. Shifting that power to management for ideological reasons risks subverting governance principles and granting management a free ride.

“Management is accountable to the board, and the board is accountable to shareholders and other stakeholders. If the Big Three and proxy advisors wield excessive influence, that is a legitimate debate to have – but doing so purely on ideological grounds risks politicising boardrooms in ways that could cause more harm than good.

“It is clear that large US investment funds are caving to Trump administration pressures and policies. How boards and management will respond, however, remains to be seen.”

If you’d like to speak to any of our faculty experts contact pr@henley.ac.uk.