Voice of AI 🚀 2026: From AI agents to buy-and-build. 10 signals that matter now.

Ralph Schwehr
Dec 29, 2025
6 min read

Dear readers,

First and foremost: Thank you. 🙏

These analyses are now read thousands of times, and you are among our most loyal readers from the very beginning. Without you , Voice of AI would not exist in this form.

I wish you all the best for the new year 2026 – health, confidence, and success! ✨ Yours, Ralph Schwehr

2026 will be a year of clarity:

Away from the AI hype, towards effective applications with measurable ROI .
Away from blind growth, towards targeted buy-and-build and portfolio optimization .
And in Germany, more specifically: securing competitiveness while at the same time part of the economy cuts jobs and reinvents itself.

Based on ten current studies and reports from Macro, Tech, M&A and VC, we have curated the compact roadmap for you: 10 signals that could determine your advantage in 2026.

By the way, with OAK AI 's AI Readiness Check, you can assess your AI fitness online, stand-alone or supplemented with tailored consulting. This reduces expensive consulting costs. You can find more information and some screenshots below .

1. Macro & Markets: “Cautiously optimistic”

Signal 1: Germany: The pressure remains high. According to Reuters, around a third of German industry associations expect job cuts in 2026, particularly in automotive, paper, and textiles. Services and defense are the positive exceptions. In other words: Location pressure remains the primary challenge; efficiency, energy, skilled workers, and regulation are not "nice to fix," but rather matters of survival.

Signal 2: Global economy: Broad but moderate expansion. S&P Global does not foresee a boom scenario in 2026, but a more robust, broader-based expansion : Emerging markets remain resilient, while China and the Eurozone steer towards a new equilibrium. For European champions, this means: Opportunities for exports, financing, and selective growth are slowly reopening.

Signal 3: C-Suite Sentiment: The mood is shifting upwards. McKinsey reports a noticeably improved sentiment from its executive surveys: Demand, profitability, and investments in new technologies, especially AI, are once again at the top of the agenda. Capital expenditures are shifting towards customer-centric, efficiency-enhancing technologies , no longer towards "moonshots without payback".

2. M&A 2026: Systematic rebound

Signal 4: Megadeals are back, but more targeted. A&O Shearman's Global M&A Report predicts that deal activity will have increased significantly in 2025, while strategic dealmaking will take center stage in 2026, driven by clearer regulatory frameworks and more attractive financing conditions.

Signal 5: $4.8 trillion in deal volume, focus on "scope" deals. Bain shows that 2025, with approximately $4.8 trillion , was the second strongest M&A year ever; about 60% of the large transactions were "scope" deals , meaning capability acquisitions for growth and new markets. M&A is no longer a "nice to have," but a central strategic tool for growth.

Signal 6: Buy-and-Build instead of Conglomerate. WTW identifies five trends, including buy-and-build, deconglomeration, and active portfolio optimization : fewer all-in bets, more systematic, smaller acquisitions that can be quickly integrated, flanked by private equity with plenty of dry powder.

What this means for you: 2026 is the year in which you not only defend your portfolio, but also sharpen it offensively , with clear theses on where AI, data and infrastructure are lacking and can be built up faster through deals.

3. AI & Tech: From Hype to Payback

Signal 7: AI agents will become colleagues. Microsoft outlines seven AI trends for 2026: agents working as digital co-workers with budgets and clearly defined tasks, security guardrails becoming standard, and more efficient infrastructure, including the first quantum hybrids. 2026 is no longer the year of demos, but of productive AI that directly impacts processes and profitability.

Signal 8: Forrester: 25% of AI budgets will be postponed. Forrester anticipates a reality check : A quarter of the AI spending planned for 2026 will be pushed back to 2027 because CFOs are demanding more robust ROI evidence and proofs of concept (POCs) without a clear business case are being halted. AI projects without clear business metrics (revenue, margin, time savings) will have little chance of success in 2026.

Signal 9: VC Perspective: “Tiny Teams” & Agents in Production. According to Business Insider, venture capitalists expect small teams with AI agents to achieve enormous leverage, potentially generating hundreds of millions in revenue with very lean organizations. M&A and acqui-hires are on the rise because everyone is looking for AI talent and production-ready stacks. Capital efficiency trumps team size; organizations without AI leverage suddenly appear cumbersome.

Signal 10: Energy, Inference & Sovereignty as New Guiding Principles. SambaNova emphasizes that inference costs, energy (“tokens per watt”), and sovereignty will become the defining design considerations for AI architectures in 2026. Training will take a back seat; those rolling out large-scale solutions will prioritize optimizing inference and power consumption, not just compute. Open model weights, sovereign setups, and efficient hardware stacks will become key competitive advantages—including geopolitical ones.

4. What growth leaders should specifically do in 2026

These ten signals result in three clear areas for action:

Play macro-resilience, don't suffer it
- Germany: Take location pressures seriously, but actively seize opportunities in services, defense, and export markets. Reuters
- Use a global perspective to strategically allocate capital flows, supply chains, and talent pools .
Orchestrating M&A as a growth engine
- Leverage "scope" deals specifically for capabilities, data, AI stacks, and new customer segments . Bain
- Combine buy-and-build playbooks with clear integration paths, synergy tracks, and talent strategies. wtwco.com
Trimming AI investments for ROI, energy & sovereignty
- Consistently align AI initiatives with business KPIs (revenue, margin, time-to-value). Forrester
- Prioritize agent use cases where "tiny teams" + agents offer the greatest leverage. Business Insider
- Design infrastructure in such a way that energy efficiency and sovereignty are considered from the outset. sambanova.ai

Key takeaways: 5 key messages for 2026

Germany remains under competitive pressure , while a cautiously positive growth story is emerging globally.
M&A is back but more selective: Scope, Buy & Build and de-conglomeration deals dominate.
AI agents are becoming productive , not just demos: they are expanding small teams into "Tiny Powerhouses".
ROI is becoming the gatekeeper , as a quarter of AI budgets are shifted without hard business cases.
Energy, inference costs & sovereignty are becoming the new strategic triad for AI infrastructure.

Sources

Reuters: German business groups expect job cuts in 2026 as economic crisis drags on , December 29, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/german-business-groups-expect-job-cuts-2026-economic-crisis-drags-2025-12-29/ Reuters
S&P Global Market Intelligence: Global Economic Outlook 2026 , December 16, 2025, https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2025/12/global-economic-outlook-2026 S&P Global
McKinsey & Company: Economic conditions outlook (2026 focus), 12.2025, https://www.mckinsey.com
A&O Shearman: Global M&A Insights: Dealmaking momentum on the rise , December 11, 2025, https://www.aoshearman.com/en/news/ao-shearman-releases-latest-global-ma-insights-dealmaking-momentum-on-the-rise A&O Shearman
Bain & Company: 2026 Global M&A Report - 2025 Lookback , December 10, 2025, PDF, https://www.allnews.ch/sites/default/files/ckfinder/userfiles/Bain%20Study%20M%26A%202025-26.pdf Allnews
WTW: 2026 M&A Outlook: Five trends companies should track , December 10, 2025, https://www.wtwco.com/en-ch/insights/2025/12/2026-m-and-a-outlook wtwco.com
Microsoft Source: What's next in AI: 7 trends to watch in 2026 , December 8th, 2025, https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/ai/whats-next-in-ai-7-trends-to-watch-in-2026 Source
Forrester / Business Wire: 2026 Technology & Security Predictions: As AI's hype fades… , October 28, 2025, https://markets.ft.com/data/announce/detail?dockey=600-202510280900BIZWIRE_USPRX____20251028_BW226928-1 Morningstar
Business Insider: VCs say tiny teams & personal agents are the tech trends to watch in 2026 , December 29, 2025, https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-trends-to-watch-in-startups-venture-capital-2026 Business Insider
SambaNova Systems: AI in 2025: What We Got Right + Insights for 2026 , December 15, 2025, https://sambanova.ai/blog/ai-trends-2026-insights sambanova.ai

Conclusion “Go 2026”

2026 will reward not the loudest, but the most consistent decision-makers: those who seize macro opportunities, play M&A strategically, and align AI with ROI, energy, and sovereignty .

If you want to increase your operational capacity this year, we at OAK AI will support you with:

AI Readiness Check: Our online tool for decision-makers is live and can be used online stand-alone or in combination with consulting services. Save five-figure sums on consulting and replace them with clearly defined, transparent usage fees. Screenshots "OAK AI Readiness Check".
Board Briefing (60 min): A concise overview of macroeconomics, AI & M&A in 2026 for your board of directors/advisory board. A clear ROI path for your AI initiatives.
Deal Radar: Identification of targets for "scope" acquisitions (AI, Data, Infrastructure) in the DACH & EU. Assessment of synergies and integration effort. In this regard, we are currently testing our OSINT tool "Argus by OAKAI" and remain available for tech due diligence .
AI Ops Checkup: Analysis of inference costs, energy consumption, and security guardrails. Recommendations for a sovereign, efficient AI infrastructure.