Top 10 Saastr Ai Predictions For 2026

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 27, 2025, 7:26 AM

by Jason Lemkin | Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blog Posts, SaaStr.Ai So we decided to do something fun this year and write up our 2026 predictions together with every single SaaStr speaker and AI post of the year! How? Every single SaaStr AI session, interview and speaker was ingested into Claude so we worked the Top 10 for 2026 up … together. Our Top 10 Predictions for B2B + AI for 2026: The Prediction: AI-native B2B companies will run sales teams that are 50% smaller than their predecessors while maintaining or increasing revenue.

At QA, we have the privilege of seeing technology and skills trends as they emerge. Coupled with our internal expertise, it’s a bit like having a crystal ball. So, as we enter 2026, I’m peering into the future and sharing a few pivotal shifts to expect surrounding AI before this year is out – but first, some context to how we got... Over the course of 2025, businesses and individuals alike made the step from preparing for AI change to actively living alongside it. 79% of organisations were using generative AI as of November, up from 65% the year prior. But we have a long way left to go, since only 38% have moved beyond pilots into real adoption.Last year, we moved from awareness to action.

We shifted from talking about AI’s potential to rolling out all-staff training in prompting proficiency, tailored to roles and industries, because organisations are ready to start really applying new, powerful tools to their use... And it remains so. One much-debated question in the public mind that I tackled last year was whether AI could replace therapists. My take on this was a resounding ‘no’. While there may be some useful applications in triaging, for instance, human expertise matters. Especially in high-risk situations.

Sadly, that message hasn’t always landed, and there have been sobering stories of people turning to AI for help instead of professionals. Regulation in this field is urgently needed to catch up with the tech and how it’s already being used.There’s another side to that coin. On one face, premature application without safeguards; on the other, AI reluctance and hesitation. There’s a tension between the fear of moving too fast and the risk of falling behind. Fueling and complicating all of this is the growing skills divide.It’s a new year, but all these questions follow us into 2026, and must be tackled. Attitudes are shifting again.

AI is becoming the interface for everything, citizen developers are on the rise and democratised tech skills are a reality. Generative AI tools won’t just be for business staff. Technical teams - yes, even those building AI applications - will need prompting proficiency of their own. AI literacy will become as fundamental as Excel skills once were. Expect deeper integration of AI features within existing software. Microsoft Copilot will lead the charge, with Copilot 365 gaining smarter connections and richer context.

We’ll end up with AI that feels less like an add-on and more like part and parcel of your familiar operating systems. We already know from OpenAI’s Dev Day that ChatGPT will start hosting apps from early this year, and I expect Copilot won’t be far behind. Microsoft’s new AI companion, Mico, is a perfect example of this shift, prioritising a human-centered approach. In short, AI is soon going to be our go-to tool for everything, with all the other tools embedded inside it. Prediction season is here for venture, and 2025 gave us plenty of signals. A lot has happened across the AI landscape, validating several predictions from our list last year and lending insights into what may happen in the year ahead.

It’s no shock the surge in excitement around AI continues to dominate the tech industry, financial markets and geopolitical narratives, permeating everything, everywhere, all at once. Below, we break down the top 10 trends we believe will shape AI and enterprise tech in the year ahead. We’ve entered an era of valuations we’ve never seen in the private tech markets. OpenAI ($500B), Anthropic ($350B), and xAI ($230B) already claim ~$1.1T valuation collectively, and are positioned to move substantially higher in 2026. OpenAI maintains pole position in the consumer chatbot space with 800M+ WAU despite negative market “vibes,” Anthropic is leading enterprise adoption and is forecasting $70B ARR by 2028, and xAI is rapidly closing the... The growth of these companies is extraordinary and we believe there’s a strong chance they’ll clear $2.5T in private market valuation next year – which for context, would equal the valuation of Oracle, Palantir,...

From our perspective, all of this momentum sets the stage for the largest IPOs of all time, with OpenAI and Anthropic likely filing S-1s by the end of 2026. It’s already been reported that Anthropic is pursuing a dual track of early IPO discussions and fresh private financing that could lift its valuation above $300B. AI or not, the next class of public debuts is expected to be truly exceptional. SpaceX’s newly disclosed plan to pursue an IPO in the second half of 2026 and the separate secondary sale rumor at an $800B valuation only reinforces the point. Here's the question no one wants to ask as we head into planning season: Did you actually gain or lose market share this year? Not revenue.

Not ARR. Not growth rate. Market share. Because here's the uncomfortable truth: If you grew 30% last year but your #1 competitor... Dear SaaStr: What sales techniques helped you consistently succeed while others failed? A few that basically always work in sales … but that so many don’t do actually do: Being a product expert.

95% of the sales execs I talk to in software don’t know the product much... So we decided to do something fun this year and write up our 2026 predictions together with every single SaaStr speaker and AI post of the year! How? Every single SaaStr AI session, interview and speaker was ingested into Claude so we worked the Top 10 for 2026 up... <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="wp-image-312594 aligncenter size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.saastr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WHY-Im-scare-to-buy-saas.jpg?resize=640%2C360&quality=70&ssl=1" alt="" width="640" height="360" srcset="https://www.saastr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WHY-Im-scare-to-buy-saas.jpg 640w, https://www.saastr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WHY-Im-scare-to-buy-saas-480x270.jpg 480w" sizes="(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 640px, 100vw" /> Here’s the question no one wants to ask as we head into planning season: Did you actually gain or lose market share this year?

Not revenue. Not ARR. Not growth rate. Market share. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: If you grew 30% last year but your #1 competitor grew 60%, you didn’t win. You lost….

Continue Reading The year 2026 will come sooner than we think. I mean, it’s always like that, especially as we get older — the years seem to pass faster than ever before. However, this time it really feels like we are kind of standing at the edge of a cliff, because it seems the world could change dramatically any day now. And of course, history also teaches us that change often arrives not gradually, but in sudden bursts that reshape everything we thought we knew. Consider how the iPhone transformed our world in 2007, or how the pandemic changed everything, both for the worse, perhaps?

Well, now imagine that pace of change compressed into a single year. That could easily be 2026, because so many things are happening right now.

Top 10 Saastr Ai Predictions For 2026

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