The increasing complexity of today’s cloud environment forces us to reconsider where technological intelligence should be positioned, how to build trust in systems that impact our daily lives, and what it means to create truly sustainable infrastructure in the age of artificial intelligence.
Far from being just a business requirement, the need to justify ROI on AI projects opens the door to more efficient and responsible models. Akamai’s forecasts for 2026 not only highlight new technological trends but also reflect a fundamental shift in how we understand the relationship between users, machines, and trust in a digital environment increasingly dominated by digital intelligence.
The Imperative of AI ROI
The AI era has introduced a new type of cost challenge for the boardroom. As models generate unprecedented demand for computing power and storage, cloud spending exceeds traditional IT budgets, prompting executives to rethink how they balance cost, performance, and innovation.
With millions of euros flowing through the AI economy, companies face mounting pressure to demonstrate tangible results. Projects lacking clear ROI are being halted or restructured, revealing inefficiencies and oversized GPU workflows.
Rather than hindering progress, this scrutiny is driving smarter, more efficient AI adoption. Leaders will be those who see cloud costs not as a restriction but as a catalyst for disciplined, value-driven innovation—leveraging scalable, edge-native architectures to optimize performance, control expenses, and unlock sustainable growth across the AI ecosystem.
Trustworthy Workflows
By the end of 2026, daily trust in AI agents will be the norm. The average person might delegate between three and five daily tasks—such as booking a doctor’s appointment, restocking the fridge, or managing bills—to a personalized AI agent with minimal supervision. This shift isn’t driven by necessity but by how rapidly AI agents have evolved to adapt to lifestyle patterns and detect behavior. The phrase “I’ll do it with AI” will replace “I’ll Google it.”
The growth of consumer confidence in AI is fueled by the near-flawless efficiency of agents and chatbots.
But why are performance levels improving, and how can they continue to do so? One reason is closer to the edge. Edge AI, which relies on cloud-based data centers closer to users, maintains local and secure workflows, with latency dropping below 50 milliseconds and failure rates reduced to one in a thousand—meaning the service gets better. People will stop double-checking AI’s outputs, building trust, and daily routine administrative tasks will become less prominent.
Rejection of the Smart Home
The numerous outages and security breaches recorded in 2025 exposed the fragility of current hyperconnected ecosystems, prompting consumers and manufacturers to reconsider how much intelligence is truly necessary in the cloud. Devices that depend partially on online connectivity risk eroding consumer trust when services fail. For cloud service providers, this is a pivotal moment. The opportunity isn’t to migrate more workloads to the cloud but to enable smarter distribution between cloud and edge. Hybrid architectures—where critical functions operate locally and synchronize intelligently when online—will define the next era of consumer trust and reliability. As brands rethink their dependence, resilience and transparency will become key differentiators. Providers that can guarantee uptime, protect data integrity, and empower developers to build “offline-capable” systems will lead the next phase of connected innovation.
The Next Phase of Streaming
Smarter, more efficient, more personalized. The explosion of streaming platforms over the past decade has transformed how audiences consume content but has also introduced new challenges related to discovery, costs, and retention. As the market matures, 2026 could mark the beginning of a consolidation phase where platforms that invest in seamless user experiences and intelligent personalization set the tone.
AI-powered catalog management and recommendation engines are becoming key differentiators, helping platforms display the right content at the right time while optimizing storage and delivery efficiency. Simultaneously, a more flexible and scalable infrastructure will be essential to accommodate fluctuating audience demand—especially as consumers adopt “seasonal” subscription habits centered around major releases.
Rather than indicating decline, this evolution points toward a smarter, more sustainable streaming ecosystem—one that prioritizes user value, operational efficiency, and technological innovation throughout the supply chain.