Last week, we argued that 2025 was the year of the power struggle, a year when the cracks in traditional work became impossible to ignore. What does 2026 have in store for us? We’ve been doing a lot of futures thinking lately. To be clear, we’re not talking about prediction (nobody can fully predict what’s coming), but preparation. We’re scanning for signals and holding multiple possibilities at once. We’re not asking “what will happen?” but “what could happen, and what would we do if it did?”
These five trends are forces already reshaping work. The outcomes are still uncertain, and our choices will shape which futures emerge.
As we head into 2026, here are five futures we’re watching closely.
1. AI Reshapes Who Works and How
Yes, AI dominated headlines in 2025. But the real story for 2026 isn’t the technology itself; it’s the ripple effects on who gets to work and what work even looks like.
Entry-level jobs are disappearing. By many measures, this is the worst time to be a new graduate looking for work. Many of the roles that used to be stepping stones into careers are now being handled by AI, leaving new workers with fewer ways into the job market.
Meanwhile, organizations are scrambling to figure out reskilling and upskilling, but for what, exactly? If the jobs of today won’t exist in three years, what are we training people for?
Here’s what we think will endure: the fundamentally human skills that matter regardless of what technological future we enter. These skills include:
- Critical thinking: the ability to evaluate, question, and direct AI outputs rather than accept them wholesale
- Emotional intelligence: reading a room, navigating conflict, building trust
- Strategic thinking: seeing the bigger picture, connecting dots, making judgment calls that no algorithm can make for you
The workers who do well won’t be the ones who learn to use the latest AI tool (those tools will keep changing anyway). They’ll be the ones who know how to think with AI while bringing the kind of perspectives and insights that only humans can bring.
We’re also watching for a shift from knowledge work back to physical labor. Plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, healthcare, and hospitality are jobs that require hands-on work, presence, and human judgment. These roles can’t be automated for now (humanoid robots are coming, but they’re not here yet). We may see an entire generation of workers who were initially told to “learn to code” pivot toward trades instead.
Our questions for 2026: How will organizations handle the collapse of the entry-level pipeline? Who bears the cost of reskilling, workers or employers? And are we investing in the durable human skills that will matter across multiple futures, or chasing technical training that will be obsolete in two years?
2. The Autonomy Exodus
The battle over return-to-office isn’t really about office space. It’s about control. In 2026, we expect this battle to intensify and to become one of many reasons why talented people walk away from traditional employment altogether.
2025 made something clear: the table is set for only a certain few. The corner offices, the decision-making power, and the rights to flexibility remain concentrated among people who already had them. For everyone else, work keeps getting worse. So, people are making their own tables.
Entrepreneurship will continue to surge, not always out of optimism, but often out of a refusal to commute for performative presence, absorb endless reorganizations, and wait for permission to do meaningful work. The best minds are increasingly going elsewhere, starting their own businesses, and choosing autonomy over access.
The reality is, however, that not everyone gets to make their own table. For many workers, 2025 and 2026 are about job hugging, not job hopping. Economic anxiety, layoffs, and a brutal job market mean that plenty of people are taking and staying in roles that don’t align with their values because people still need to eat.
This creates a bifurcation. Some workers have the savings, the skills, or the safety net to be choosy. They can prioritize values, demand flexibility, and walk away. Others are holding on to whatever they can get, even if it means working for organizations whose direction they disagree with.
Our questions for 2026: What happens to organizations when their most capable people leave? Can traditional employers make a compelling case for staying, or have they already lost that argument? And who actually gets to implement their values when choosing where to work?
3. The Squeeze on the Middle
We wrote last week about how middle managers report less psychological safety than anyone else in organizations. They’re caught in an impossible position: expected to execute strategies they didn’t shape, absorb pressure from above, and shield their teams from chaos below.
In 2026, this squeeze will intensify. AI tools are automating some of what middle managers used to do (coordinating, synthesizing, reporting), while flatter organizational structures are eliminating their roles entirely. At the same time, the human work of management, such as coaching, translating, and building trust, is more needed than ever, but rarely valued or resourced.
Our questions for 2026: Do organizations recognize what they’re losing as middle management hollows out? Or will they keep cutting until the connective tissue that holds companies together is gone?
4. The Political Stakes of Work
2026 is a midterm election year, and more is riding on it than most people realize when it comes to the future of work.
Healthcare costs continue to rise, inflation is still high, economic anxiety is widespread, and it’s fueling political upheaval in multiple directions.
We’re watching two competing visions: Left-wing populism that could decouple healthcare from employment, strengthen worker protections, and expand the social safety net. And right-wing populism that gives corporations continued dominance and keeps workers dependent on employers for basic security.
Which vision gains ground in 2026 will shape what’s possible for years to come. If healthcare remains tied to employment, the autonomy exodus we described above becomes a luxury only some can afford. If worker protections weaken further, the squeeze on everyone, not just middle managers, gets tighter.
Our questions for 2026: Does this election shift power toward workers or toward corporations? And how can organizations prepare for either outcome?
5. Women, Care, and the Fraying Safety Net
The care economy is in crisis. Childcare costs have become untenable for many families, elder care is increasingly falling on working adults, predominantly women, and the pandemic-era supports that briefly acknowledged this reality are long gone.
The result is that working women are being forced to make impossible choices. They’re often choosing to leave the workforce, not because they want to, but because the math doesn’t work.
This isn’t just a “women’s issue.” It’s a structural failure that affects everyone: the organizations losing talent, the families losing income, and the economy losing participation. Without a stronger social safety net, things could get dicier still.
We’re watching to see whether this crisis forces more serious conversations about structural solutions such as universal childcare, paid leave, and universal basic income. These feel like 2027 conversations at the earliest, contingent on political shifts, but the pressure is building now.
Our questions for 2026: How many more women will leave the workforce before this becomes impossible to ignore? And what would it take to actually address the root causes rather than expecting individuals to absorb systemic failures?
Why We’re Sharing This
We’re not sharing these trends to be doomsayers or to claim we have a crystal ball. We’re sharing them because the best way to navigate uncertainty is to name it, explore it, and prepare for multiple possibilities.
These five areas are interconnected. AI reshapes what jobs exist. That reshaping pushes people toward different career paths. The viability of those paths depends on healthcare policy and political outcomes. And all of it lands differently depending on your identity, geography, caregiving responsibilities, and access to capital.
Over the coming months, we’ll be diving deeper into futures thinking. We’ll explore what it is, why it matters, how to do it, and how it connects to building organizations that are genuinely ready for what’s next. We’ll also be introducing a new framework we’ve been developing called SHIFT, designed to help organizations build the adaptive capacity that these uncertain times demand, with inclusion at the forefront.
The future isn’t written yet. But the choices being made now by all of us will shape what becomes possible. What future trends are you watching?