CCS Insight’s Predictions for 2026 and Beyond Revealed

London, 23 October 2025: CCS Insight has unveiled its eagerly awaited Predictions for 2026 and Beyond, providing bold insights into the future of the connected world. This year, the company shares its vision on AI, connected devices, sustainability, connectivity, regulation, network technology and more. In an uncertain world, these are all areas that will shape our daily lives in the coming years.

Shaun Collins, Group CEO at FDM/CCS Insight, commented: “These predictions offer a glimpse into the future, where AI-driven innovations will intersect with ethical considerations and societal transformation. We live in a world where geopolitical uncertainty is also weighing heavily on the future outlook. Still, we remain optimistic that technology continues to play a key role on numerous levels, and we hope these predictions will help navigate the challenges ahead and help our clients identify future opportunities”.

The predictions below are a small snapshot of the more than 100 predictions our team of analysts will be sharing this year.

• Firms realize that replacing entry-level employees with AI was a mistake and reinstitute graduate intake programmes. As companies implement AI processes to replace basic tasks traditionally carried out by graduates in their first job, they dispense with their annual intake of graduates. But these young employees usually go on to develop skills and experience that prove more valuable to their employers. By opting for the short-term gain of reduced costs, firms are denied the longer-term benefits of regular employees. Realizing their error, they reinstitute graduate intake programmes by 2030.

• Subscription fatigue kills half of streaming services by 2028. With dozens of competing services, and consumer spending under pressure, the streaming industry undergoes major consolidation. Inflation, rising churn, fragmented content and regulation that makes it easier to cancel all accelerate subscription cancellations. By 2028, only a handful of dominant platforms — such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video — remain intact. Many others merge, retrench to niche markets or shut down entirely.
  
• Emotion-recognition capabilities are offered in smartphones and wearable computing devices by 2030. Significant progress has already been made in proactive and preventative health, and we expect further progress in the coming years with new non-invasive sensors able to measure glucose levels and blood pressure. However, the next frontier in health comes from AI-powered emotion-sensing technology that offers users emotional support and coping strategies akin to those of a virtual psychologist.
  
• A large company will use AI to disguise the location of its customer care agents by 2027. Offshoring customer care centres to other countries has long been controversial and often unpopular with customers. But even within a country, the location of customer agents may be in an economically weaker area where agents have strong regional accents. A large enterprise uses AI-based models to alter the accents of their call centre staff in real time to more closely match the origin of the inbound call. Although this may be used to disguise the voices of call agents in a country like India, it is equally likely to be used to hide a regional accent within the same country.
  
• By 2028, a generative AI company is forced to close owing to copyright-related legal action. There are multiple risks for generative AI models, based on the sources of information used to train the models and the potential for the output from models to include trademarked or copyright material. Litigation is already underway; one of the current lawsuits causes an AI start-up to cease business, as it is unable to meet the cost of recreating its model or paying the damages awarded against it. The two most likely actions are those involving a model that reproduces copyright-protected movie characters or the content of illegally acquired non-fiction books.
  
• In the UK, digital skills becomes a core qualification alongside maths and English by 2030. The UK government’s strategy to develop a highly skilled workforce means a GCSE in digital skills becomes as important as qualifications in maths and English. The digital skills GCSE is a key determinant in assessing whether an individual can progress to the next stage of education or enter employment. The qualification covers coding, web design, social media use, online safety, and AI prompt engineering. Prompt engineering becomes a standard part of curricula at all levels of education, from GCSE to university degrees, often taught as a cross-disciplinary skill. The greater emphasis placed on digital skills is a boon to tech companies with learning programmes like IBM, Google and Microsoft, and policymakers increasingly call for frameworks that encourage industries to take a greater stake in secondary-level tech education.
  
• Despite the prominence given to AI features on smartphones, to 2027 people largely ignore them when choosing a phone. With hardware performance plateauing, manufacturers are attempting to differentiate their phones by focusing on elements like proprietary AI agents, contextual automation and personalized experiences. They hope AI features can create user lock-in while generating recurring revenue through premium services and subscriptions. However, over the next two years most consumers still select their next phone based on compatibility with an ecosystem or features like battery life and camera performance.
  
• To 2030, smart glasses without a display will prove more socially acceptable than those with integrated displays. With more than 10 million pairs of smart glasses expected to be sold in 2028, questions are raised about which design is most appropriate. Some smart glasses gain integrated displays, but people talking to wearers of these devices find it annoying that the person they are talking to is constantly distracted and their eyes are not focused on them. As a result, smart glasses with displays are regarded as antisocial technology; audio-only smart glasses remain the more-attractive option as they are less intrusive.
  
• Over the next decade, connected watches for the elderly surge in popularity in countries with rapidly ageing populations. Countries such as Japan and South Korea are seeing a rapid expansion of the elderly population, who need increasing care and attention. The strong tech-literacy of these countries aligns well with rising interest in watches for the elderly, resulting in strong growth in this category.
  
• By 2030, large enterprises publish a “return on commute” index in sustainability reports. Early tenants in intelligent buildings have reported higher comfort scores and fewer service calls as sensor data fine-tunes air conditioning, lighting and meeting-room tech. By blending occupancy comfort, meeting-quality analytics and per-employee energy use into a single index of the financial returns from employees commuting to the office, companies can quantify how well physical space and digital platforms work together. Adoption is voluntary and slow at first owing to the difficulty of compiling data on comfort levels and the quality of meetings. However, the power of linking employee experience to sustainability makes the index a hit with HR leaders, corporate social responsibility teams and investors.
  
• A pop star launches their own mobile service by 2027. It has never been easier for brands to move into mobile; for a modest investment, aggregators and enablers can do much of the heavy lifting, and eSIMs can help people get connected more quickly. The pop star’s motivation is to better engage with their audience. This includes combining a mobile service with competitions, exclusive rewards, priority tickets and discounted merchandise. Candidates include Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Beyonce. Actors, broadcasters, influencers and sportspeople who command a wide following watch the move with interest.
  
• 6G technology is not significantly faster than 5G. Recent advances in mobile radio network waveforms have done little to improve efficiency. Where 3G and 4G enabled much more data to be transmitted in the same amount of spectrum, with 5G New Radio the improvement slowed dramatically as technology started to close on the constraints of Shannon’s limit. With 6G, the main improvements to speed come through access to new spectrum — for example in the upper 6 GHz and 7 GHz bands — and the use of larger antenna arrays on cell sites, and not from fundamental waveform innovations.

The full list of predictions and interviews with the relevant analysts are available on request.

Notes to editors

About FDM

FDM, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary, provides industry-leading point-of-sale data sets through over 50 data exchanges and captures global pricing data, comprising millions of data points each week. Its insights help clients optimise their product portfolios, pricing strategies, and sales performance.

About CCS Insight

CCS Insight has delivered trusted research and advisory services for three decades, with global expertise in connected technology, devices and consumer trends. Each year, it produces predictions of what the coming years will have in store for technology and its impact on the world.

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CCS Insight media relations: emma.bluck@ccsinsight.com