This September, MD Future 26 brings together leaders, innovators and experts from across the technology ecosystem to explore the emerging technologies and ideas set to shape our economy and society in the years ahead.
From AI and digital infrastructure to deep tech, cyber security, talent and innovation, the pace of change presents huge opportunities for organisations - but also raises important questions about where to invest, what to prioritise and how to prepare for what comes next.
Ahead of the conference, we asked contributors from across our membership to answer one question: What’s the next big shift in technology — and how should businesses prepare?
Here, they share their perspectives on the trends they believe will have the greatest impact, the opportunities and challenges ahead, and what organisations should be thinking about now to stay ready for the future.
Part Two, featuring more perspectives from across the ecosystem, will be published next week.
MD Future 26 is sponsored by Pulsant, Novacoast with Platform Markets Group and CTI Digital, with support from Department and UK Tech Cluster Group.
Novacoast
Beyond AI, Quantum is coming… today’s data, today's risk, tomorrows technology!
David Ramazetti, Director of Security Services
You’re a CISO, CIO, IT Technician or maybe a 65-year-old grandparent that gets groceries delivered from an online reseller; should you care about Quantum Computing? Like anything in the digital age, the answer yes but with a caveat. As this blog is around “all things digital”, I will stick to that area but before I discuss that area, I would want to point out where Quantum Computing could help us, as humans.
Eventually, it could help improve our lives, in the areas of health, energy costs, and products and services. Faster discovery of drugs, better battery materials for sustainable energy, power grid optimization, improved chemical processes and less corrosion and waste. However, have the benefits been realized today, yes, but mostly only scientifically, and has yet to make it into our everyday life.
Now onto the digital side and why you should really care, privacy. While quantum computing has not yet cracked our current encryption schemes, in the long term it is possible. Harvest now, decrypt later is what hackers are banking on. It is for this reason; you should start to inventory your most important data and make sure it is being encrypted with a PQC encryption scheme. It may not be tomorrow, but in 5-10 years, they may be able to decrypt it, and they already may have the encrypted version of your data today.
Find out more about Novacoast here.
BDO
The Next AI Shift? Making Outputs Verifiable
Kamil Maharajh, Lead Data Scientist (DASCA)
Ask what comes next and most answers say autonomous agents. I would be careful. A good deal of what is sold as an agent is deterministic workflow automation with a language model making one routing decision in the middle. We have been building that for decades. Wrapping it in a loop does not make it new.
Agents do work in one place and the boundary is informative/instructive. They work where the output can be checked cheaply by something other than a person. Code compiles or it does not. Tests pass or they fail. The loop can verify itself and try again.
Most business processes are not like that, which is why the pilots stall.
So the shift I would prepare for is less exciting and more durable. Make outputs verifiable, and treat that as infrastructure rather than a test phase. Golden sets you rerun on every change. Checking that every claim traces back to a source. Watching how much people edit the output, because if they rewrite rather than edit, there was never any value in it.
The scarce capability is not prompt writing. It is people who can build the decision layer and wire a model around it, and that takes far longer to grow than a licence takes to buy.
Treat it as data science and engineering, not procurement.
Find out more about BDO here.
Gate One
The next big commercial shift - AI adoption to AI-driven growth transformation
Simon Holden, Digital & Technology Practice Partner
A new report from Gate One, with research and analysis from IDC, reveals that the next big shift in technology isn't AI itself, it’s building the organisational capability to convert AI experimentation into measurable growth and business value.
Right now, 68% of organisations remain in the experimentation phase, applying generative AI and AI agents to isolated use cases, while only 10% have reached transformative use. With only one in three initiatives meeting or exceeding expectations, organisations need to move AI beyond automating existing (often broken) processes and use it to reshape business models, operations and workforce capability for sustained growth.
AI alone won’t transform a business. Growth comes when the right conditions are in place.
How to prepare:
- Build data foundations first – AI scales when data is trusted, connected and usable. Leading organisations prioritise data platforms, customer technologies and core modernisation (60%), and 80% actively manage data for value.
- Redesign processes before automating – Using AI to speed up broken processes just scales inefficiency. 84% of Leading organisations prioritise end-to-end process redesign at scale.
- Make governance and data a C-suite responsibility – AI decisions can’t sit in technology alone. 86% of Leading organisations have fully strategic and enterprise-wide governance, with the C-suite accountable for outcomes.
- Treat people as the programme – Skills gaps, change resistance and limited capacity remain major barriers to AI adoption, cited by 55%, 50% and 42% respectively.
- Align the C-suite around shared priorities - 97% of Leading organisations align priorities across transformation areas. Fragmented leadership views often stall transformation.
Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Gate One, “The Balance Advantage: How organisations crack the growth efficiency code” (IDC #EUR154681426, July 2026)
Find out more about Gate One here.
Fuwment
The Next AI Advantage Won’t Be Automation. It Will Be Seeing Talent Differently.
Marziyeh Rajabpour, CEO & Co-Founder
We often talk about AI as a tool for doing things faster: automating tasks, analysing more data or reducing costs.
I think one of its more important impacts will be different: changing how we recognise human potential.
Businesses still make many talent decisions using signals designed for a different era — degrees, job titles, years of experience and previous employers. They tell us something, but they don’t tell us everything.
Talent is not static. People develop through experience, motivation, opportunity, networks and the environments around them. Yet many capable people remain invisible simply because their potential does not fit the signals we traditionally look for.
AI gives us an opportunity to rethink that.
The businesses that benefit most won’t simply use AI to screen more CVs. They will use technology to understand capabilities, transferable skills and potential more intelligently — and then create pathways that allow people to develop.
For me, this is the bigger shift: moving from systems that ask, “What has this person already done?” to systems that also ask, “What could this person become?”
The future of talent won’t just be about finding the best people.
It will be about seeing potential earlier.
Find out more about Fuwment here.
Datum Datacentres
Data sovereignty
The next big shift in technology could well be to do with cloud repatriation. After years of pushing workloads into the public cloud, more businesses are moving some systems back into colocation facilities or infrastructure they manage themselves. This is a response to cost, control and a much sharper understanding of where data actually sits.
For many firms, the issue is data sovereignty. If you need to know exactly where customer or operational data is stored, the cloud can get expensive fast, especially when you want it pinned to specific UK regions. In some cases, that regional certainty comes at a premium that businesses no longer want to absorb. With colocation or private infrastructure, they can point to the rack, the site and the jurisdiction, which matters to clients, regulators and boards.
Many organisations are realising that they have moved critical data into environments they do not fully understand, and once they become aware of this, the appeal of owning more of the stack grows quickly. ‘Cloud first’ isn’t always the most sensible approach - a far more robust solution is a hybrid one where you put each workload where cost, compliance and control make most sense.
Find out more about Datum Datacentres here.
Alexander & Co
Everyone wants AI - few businesses are ready for the financial consequences
Emma Ball, Partner
The race to adopt AI has already begun. Businesses are investing in new tools, automating processes and looking for ways to improve productivity. But while much of the conversation focuses on what AI can achieve, fewer businesses are asking a more fundamental question: Is your business data ready for the AI era?
AI is only as reliable as the information behind it. Inaccurate financial records, poor-quality data and disconnected systems can lead to misleading insights, with AI potentially accelerating decisions based on information that was wrong from the start.
The businesses that gain the greatest advantage from AI will not simply be those investing in the latest technology. They will be those with accurate financial information, strong controls and effective governance to make confident decisions.
There is also a growing tax and compliance dimension. As organisations evolve, areas such as R&D investment, VAT, employment models, data ownership and reporting requirements are becoming increasingly important.
The future belongs to businesses that combine technology with trusted data and professional insight. AI will transform how organisations operate. Those preparing now will be best placed to turn disruption into opportunity.
At Alexander & Co, we believe that we have an important role to play in helping businesses prepare not only for where they are today, but where they are going next.
Find out more about Alexander & Co here.
Adria Solutions
The Next Big Shift Will Be From AI Interest to AI Integration
Jazz Thomson, Digital Marketing Manager
The biggest shift I’m seeing isn’t simply that more businesses are hiring for AI.
It’s that AI is moving from being a boardroom discussion to an operational capability.
Working in recruitment gives me a useful view of how businesses are approaching that shift. Over the last six to twelve months, I’ve had regular conversations with senior executives who know AI needs to play a bigger role in their business, but don’t yet know what that should look like. They understand AI has the potential to reduce costs, improve productivity and speed up processes, but many are still unsure where those opportunities exist within their own organisation or what AI talent they actually need.
I believe the next shift will be businesses hiring AI specialists at an operational level. People who understand both AI and the business, and can identify where automation, AI agents and machine learning can streamline workflows and deliver measurable commercial value. Once those foundations are in place, organisations will have a much clearer picture of the wider AI skills they need.
As this happens, technology teams will naturally evolve. AI will increasingly take on repetitive tasks, allowing technical teams to focus on more strategic, higher-value work. Rather than replacing people, it will reshape the skills businesses need and how technology functions operate.
For C-suite leaders, I think preparing for this shift means staying informed about how AI is evolving and understanding how it can influence their business before investing in tools or making large hiring decisions. In many cases, bringing in the right operational AI expertise first will help shape a far more effective long-term strategy.
I don’t think the businesses that gain the greatest advantage will necessarily be those adopting AI the fastest, but those applying it in the right places.
Find out more about Adria Solutions here.
UniteVerse
The Next Competitive Advantage Isn't AI. It's Cultural Intelligence.
Adrian Norman, Founder & CEO
For decades, organisations have measured what people do.
How many visitors arrived. How long they stayed. How much they spent. Whether they came back.
Those metrics have transformed business, but they only tell us what happened.
The next decade won't be defined by collecting more data. It will be defined by understanding what that data is really telling us.
Everyone is talking about AI.
I believe they're asking the wrong question.
AI isn't the competitive advantage.
Understanding people is.
AI will become accessible to everyone. The organisations that thrive won't simply have the best technology - they'll be the ones that understand human experience better than anyone else.
That starts with trusted, diverse, real-time data collected consistently over time.
Because that's where something far more valuable begins to emerge.
Data becomes patterns.
Patterns become insight.
Insight becomes prediction.
Prediction enables prevention.
Prevention builds trust.
Trust creates cultural intelligence.
Instead of reacting to complaints, organisations will recognise emerging issues before they become problems. Instead of assuming there's an 'average customer', they'll understand that every individual experiences the same place differently - and they'll have the intelligence to respond before small issues become significant ones.
We've already seen this in practice. Disabled and neurodivergent people often describe the very same environment differently from the overall average. Those differences aren't anomalies - they're patterns. When organisations can recognise those patterns early, they don't just improve services; they create environments where more people genuinely feel they belong.
I believe we're witnessing the next evolution of organisational intelligence.
For years, we've relied on Business Intelligence to understand performance.
Today, we're entering the era of Audience Intelligence, helping organisations understand lived experience.
The next evolution is Cultural Intelligence - the ability to understand, in real time, how different people experience places, services and communities; recognise emerging patterns; anticipate future needs; and continuously improve before problems arise.
Technology shouldn't just make organisations more efficient.
It should make organisations more aware.
Because when we understand people better, we don't just make better business decisions.
We build safer places.
More inclusive experiences.
Stronger communities.
And ultimately, a better society.
For decades we've focused on building smarter technology.
The next challenge is building technology that helps us become smarter about people.
That's the future I'm excited to help create.
Find out more about UniteVerse here.
Kói
Skills and capabilities orgs should be investing in today
David Turner, Director
With AI ever-deeper embedded into product development, I see results emerging across orgs that point to an upcoming shift in skills. The floor of execution has risen - anything text-based, code-based or repeatable can now be covered by agent or workflow. And the same relatively few AI models in use are starting to create the same flavours of product and content.
Organisations need to rebalance toward orchestration and judgement; higher ratios of Product strategists, Architects, Security Experts. People who can think in terms of systems and scalability - differentiating products and services, maintaining moats and margins, putting into place the policies and guardrails to avoid vulnerabilities and mountains of tech debt accumulating from break-neck development. Judgement and the ability to translate technology to outcomes are all that stands between an AI-first org and products disappearing into a sea of slop while margins and quality erode.
Underpinning all this, deep expertise in AI is mandatory. Research and experimentation to stay on top of the frantic pace of LLM and AI feature release cycles have become ticket-to-entry. Move too slow and you’re uncompetitive; move too fast and you’re over-exposed to risk and degradation of tools as feature-stuffing takes hold.
AI makes building faster and differentiation harder. Judgement at pace is where organisations must now invest.
Find out more about Kói here.
Small City Marketing
Why team size no longer tells you what a business can produce
Jordan Price, Managing Director
For years, the size of a business roughly told you what it could produce. That link is now breaking, and it's a shift I think most companies are massively underestimating.
I run a B2B marketing agency that delivers for more than 12+ clients, and for most of that work the team is just myself (currently), supported by AI and a couple of freelancers. 2 years ago, that volume would have needed 4 - 5 people. What changed wasn't ambition, it was that AI quietly removed the low-value work that used to fill my day.
So, the practical question for businesses preparing now isn't which tools to buy in my opinion. The tools are becoming a commodity, and owning more of them is rarely the advantage people expect. The better question is what you do with the time and attention they free up.
What I'd invest in is judgement. When everyone can access the same AI, the scarce and valuable thing is the human taste that decides what is worth making, and shapes it into something that doesn't sound like everyone else. AI can produce the work, but it still takes a person to make it matter.
That is what I'd be building for now.
Find out more about Small City Marketing here.
