Technology and policy experts expect agentic artificial intelligence, digital protest and fully automated firms to test legal and regulatory boundaries in 2026, as businesses and governments confront new forms of automation and resistance.
Automated company
The World Ethical Data Foundation (WEDF) expects at least one small business run entirely by AI systems to draw attention in the coming year.
"A company, in the most legitimate small business sense of the word, is revealed to be completely run by AI, from the 'owner/director', all the way down. Whatever product or services it provides - printed t-shirts, VPN services, or something else - the entire operation will be automated, including marketing and accounting. The likely outcome is that the company folds within the year, and that subsequent headlines will barely register on the global news circuit," said Cade Diehm, Head of Research, World Ethical Data Foundation.
Such an experiment would highlight unresolved questions around liability, employment, accountability and corporate governance when software agents make all operational decisions.
Digital disobedience
WEDF leaders also point to rising tensions between users and digital platforms. They link this to stricter controls on online behaviour and data use.
"2026 will be the year we begin to witness both intended and unintended digital civil disobedience. For some, this will feel cybherpunk; for others, it will simply be unavoidable. Digital spaces are becoming so unwieldy, autocratic, controlling, and suffocating that circumventing impositions will feel like the only viable option," said John Marshall, Executive Director, World Ethical Data Foundation.
"Hacking will return to what hacking was always meant to be: making computers do what people need them to do, rather than submitting to the constraints baked in by operating systems, big tech, and increasingly heavy-handed governments. Even if the numbers remain small at first, this shift will become visible in Western technology cultures, much as it has long been present in more oppressive regimes," said Marshall.
Security and policy teams may face more users attempting to bypass restrictions in software and services. This could range from workarounds in consumer apps to more organised technical protests against corporate or state systems.
Policy strain
Agentic AI, which involves software agents that can take actions on behalf of users, is emerging as a central concern for governance bodies. Traditional oversight has focused on individual models and datasets. Autonomous decision-making across systems introduces new points of risk.
Anna Babkina, Head of Partnerships, World Ethical Data Foundation, said, "Agentic AI is about to make governance and policymaking even more complicated. With policy already lagging far behind AI development, autonomous systems will force a shift from model-centric oversight to ecosystem governance."
"We need to understand the contexts these agents inhabit: what information they can access, what tools they can call, what boundaries shape their behaviour, and what values or constraints are or aren't embedded in those interactions. Right now, policymakers don't have that lens. We lack even the first frameworks for describing, let alone governing, agentic behaviour at scale."
"At WEDF we are currently working on including an agentic AI domain into our Open Standard for Responsible AI - which is essentially an open source governance model that captures the feedback and suggestions in real time across 80 countries. Agility is a key here, as these systems are getting built with insane pace," said Anna Babkina.
Industry players see similar pressures inside corporate security operations, where early uses of agentic AI are emerging.
Security operations
Cybersecurity firms expect agentic AI to reshape how security operations centres (SOCs) function. They do not expect full autonomy in the near term.
Dan Schiappa, President, Technology & Services, Arctic Wolf, said, "Agentic AI is widely considered the next frontier in cybersecurity for its ability to adapt, learn and execute actions on its own, absent of any human input or intervention. Despite its promise, the industry is far from seeing a fully autonomous Security Operations Centre (SOC)."
"Instead, in 2026, we push for the transformation of the SOC, not by automating how SOCs work, but by reinventing how SOCs work with an expert-based approach. We will see the growing use of agentic AI taking the lead with human aid, versus human leading with AI aid. This will radically transform how SOCs work by using experts to replace human expertise, but it will not completely replace human expertise. So having humans in the loop to provide human expertise, but also humans on the loop, so the human can provide oversight to actions taken by AI and help to further refine the domain specific fine-tuned models used in the agentic framework. While the growing availability of high-quality data will help further SOC automation, human-in-the-loop processes will remain critical."
This approach implies a dual role for human analysts. They supply judgment in high-risk cases and supervise models' actions across large volumes of routine incidents.
Vertical AI
Vendors in Asia Pacific and Japan expect a rapid move from general-purpose AI systems to sector and country-specific stacks.
David Irecki, CTO of APJ, Boomi, said, "In 2026, the agentic AI revolution will shift from experimentation to specialisation. Across Asia Pacific and Japan, governments and industries will accelerate the creation of sovereign and sector-specific AI ecosystems, from healthcare and education to manufacturing and finance, each trained on contextual, localised data. This marks a new competitive era where success depends not on having the biggest AI model, but the most contextually intelligent one. The next wave of differentiation will come from AI systems that understand local language, regulation, and nuance."
"As these national and industry ecosystems multiply, Modern iPaaS will become the critical connective layer linking sovereign platforms, legacy systems, and agentic environments without compromising governance or compliance. Integration is no longer a technical challenge; it's a strategic capability. Organisations that can seamlessly connect data, systems, and AI agents across sovereign and sector boundaries will define the next phase of digital progress in APJ. Interoperability will be the true measure of competitiveness in 2026."
Enterprises in the region are likely to work with multiple national and private AI platforms in parallel. They will need consistent rules and controls across them.
Everyday automation
Companies also expect AI agents to become more embedded in back-office and customer-facing processes without major public launches.
Irecki continued, "In 2026, AI will no longer be a project or an experiment. It will become part of the enterprise fabric. Rather than arriving with a 'big bang', AI will quietly embed itself into existing workflows, managing supplier negotiations, financial operations, customer engagement, and employee assistance behind the scenes."
"This is the era of Agentic Automation - where intelligent agents not only execute repetitive tasks but also reason, decide, and act autonomously within governed boundaries. The result is a new kind of enterprise efficiency, where automation becomes adaptive and continuous. Modern iPaaS platforms will underpin this shift, integrating AI agents directly into ERP, CRM, and supply chain systems where real work happens."
"The organisations that lead will be those that balance automation speed with transparency and oversight, embedding observability and governance into every connection. Across APJ, 2026 will mark the moment when AI stops being something separate and starts being everywhere - invisible, intelligent, and indispensable," said Irecki.
