What will digitalization look like in 2026? Four predictions of OWIS experts
How will digitalization look like in 2026?
Imagine a typical working day in 2026.
You arrive at the office or log in from home. You are not thinking about where a document is, who last worked on it, or whether a decision is stuck with one person. Processes are not explained verbally, searched for across folders, or rescued through improvisation. They simply flow.
At that point, digitalization is no longer a topic for meetings, a project being “implemented,” or an initiative someone has to push. It is already there. Running quietly in the background. Like electricity. Like the internet.
This is exactly the direction digitalization will take in 2026.
Drawing on more than two decades of experience in digitalizing processes across organizations of different sizes and sectors, OWIS experts clearly recognize patterns that keep repeating. Based on that experience, we highlight four changes that will become part of everyday work in 2026, without big announcements and without alternatives.
1. Digitalization will no longer be an initiative. It will become infrastructure.
In 2026, no one will talk about a “digitalization project” as something with a defined beginning and end.
Digital systems will become the foundation on which organizations operate. Processes will be designed from the outset for a digital environment, rather than translated later from paper into software.
In practice, this means that:
business rules will be embedded in systems, not stored in people’s heads
changes to procedures will be a matter of configuration, not a new project
speed of adaptation will matter more than perfectly drawn organizational charts
Organizations that continue to treat digitalization as an occasional effort rather than permanent infrastructure in 2026 will quickly find themselves falling behind reality.
2. The private sector will drive the strongest moves. Because of people, not technology.
In 2026, the main pressure for digitalization in the private sector will not come from IT departments, but from the workforce itself.
The workforce is already largely made up of people who grew up with digital tools. For them, paper-based processes, manual records, and disconnected systems are not “the old way of working,” but a clear sign of inefficiency.
Digitalization will become a survival tool in the labor market:
for retaining quality people
for reducing everyday frustration
for creating clearer visibility into responsibilities and results
Organizations that fail to offer a digitally coherent working environment in 2026 will not lose people because they pay less, but because they are slower, less transparent, and harder to work in.
3. Rising costs and talent shortages will push automation to the forefront.
By 2026, it will no longer be realistic to expect business growth to be solved simply by hiring more people.
Labor costs will continue to rise, while the availability of qualified talent will not keep pace with organizational needs. As a result, digitalization will take on a very concrete and pragmatic goal: reducing operational pressure.
This will involve:
automation of administrative and repetitive processes
clearly defined rules that systems enforce automatically
reduced dependency on “key individuals” who hold everything in their heads
Organizations without these mechanisms in place by 2026 will face growing operational risk that can no longer be absorbed by additional human effort.
4. AI will move beyond experimentation and become a daily tool.
In 2026, artificial intelligence will not radically overturn how organizations work. Instead, its impact will grow steadily and consistently.
Not through large, spectacular projects, but through quiet, measurable improvements:
faster information processing
decision-making support
increased employee productivity
AI will deliver the most value where it is clearly integrated into existing processes, with well-defined rules and boundaries. Organizations that use it thoughtfully may not have impressive “wow” examples for presentations, but they will have fewer errors, faster responses, and more efficient workdays.
So what does this mean?
In 2026, digitalization will not arrive with a big announcement.
It will not be framed through ambitious slogans, nor treated as a transformation initiative. It will simply be there, embedded in everyday operations, invisible when it works, and painfully noticeable when it does not.
Organizations that recognize this in time will not necessarily be the loudest. But they will be more stable, more resilient, and better prepared for the changes ahead. And in 2026, that will be the real competitive advantage.