AI is no longer being used as just a tool to assist people. It’s becoming agentic across every industry, moving autonomously, learning adaptively, and embedding itself into the core of how organizations operate. This shift marks one of the most profound transformations in modern enterprise: the rise of agentic AI, where systems don’t just support decision-making, they make, orchestrate, and optimize it.

A recent IDC prediction reveals that by 2027, half of enterprises will be using AI agents to redefine how humans and machines collaborate. That single forecast captures what’s at stake for 2026: the agentic era. It’s an era where workflows, strategies, and even business models are being redefined by systems that learn, reason, and act across every layer of the enterprise.

The question is no longer whether AI will reshape businesses. It’s how quickly, how deeply, and how to prepare.

IDC’s 2026 FutureScape was built to answer exactly that. Through exclusive webinars, global reports, and analyst insights, leaders can see what’s next for their industries and what to do about it now.

To help organizations navigate these accelerating crosscurrents and chart a deliberate path forward, IDC’s 2026 FutureScape brings together the latest predictions, research, and foresight on the next phase of AI’s evolution.

Charting the next AI course

FutureScape 2026 is more than a collection of forecasts. It’s a navigation system for what’s ahead, a guide for leaders to anticipate disruption, steer through uncertainty, and turn turbulence into forward momentum.

Built on 35 global prediction sets across 12 industries, this year’s FutureScape explores how agentic AI will evolve from experimentation to enterprise orchestration, and what that means for strategy, technology, workforce, and trust.

Through IDC’s lens, the agentic journey unfolds as both a challenge and an opportunity:

Challenge: Economic volatility, regulation, and workforce disruption can quietly pull organizations off course. Fragmented AI adoption risks wasted investment and slower progress.
Opportunity: With deliberate navigation that aligns strategy, workforce, and tech stack, those same forces can become momentum toward resilience and growth.

FutureScape 2026 reframes disruption as a navigable current. The organizations that will thrive in the agentic era are those that see AI not as an experiment, but as the operating logic of the enterprise.

What you’ll gain from IDC’s 2026 FutureScape

Across every report and prediction, one truth stands out: AI has become the engine of enterprise transformation. The organizations that lead will treat AI as infrastructure, embedding it across decisions, operations, and customer experiences.

FutureScape 2026 identifies four powerful currents shaping this transformation:

Navigating the crosscurrents of disruption
Leaders are confronting economic uncertainty, regulatory shifts, and geopolitical turbulence. IDC’s research shows that governed, well-aligned AI can transform these disruptive forces into forward motion to fuel agility and growth instead of fragmentation.

Charting the path to enterprise-wide orchestration
Many organizations are still stuck in pilot mode. The winners will move from isolated experiments to enterprise-scale orchestration, where agentic AI operates seamlessly across data, applications, and workflows to drive continuous improvement and innovation.
Building trust, resilience, and prosperity
As AI assumes greater autonomy, trust becomes the foundation of long-term success. Responsible AI practices, transparent governance, and human oversight will differentiate the organizations that thrive from those that stall.
Unlocking innovation beyond productivity
The true promise of AI lies not in incremental efficiency but in new value creation. FutureScape 2026 highlights how agentic AI is redefining industries from healthcare to finance to manufacturing by powering new business models, products, and experiences.

Every prediction in FutureScape 2026 is grounded in IDC’s data-driven research and designed to help leaders move from insight to action.

Why the 2026 FutureScapes matter now

The 2026 reports arrive at a pivotal moment in the AI transformation journey.

According to IDC’s AI Maturity Model Benchmark, only 1% of organizations have reached the stage of an optimized, AI-fueled enterprise while over half remain in early stages of transformation.

At the same time, global AI investment continues to surge. Agentic systems are projected to account for nearly half of all AI spending by 2029, reflecting the rapid shift from tools that assist to systems that act autonomously and intelligently.

The message is clear: the future isn’t waiting. The gap between early adopters and laggards will widen quickly. Businesses that modernize their technology stacks, reskill their workforces, and embed agentic AI into strategy today will define the next era of innovation, trust, and growth.

How to access the research

IDC’s FutureScape 2026 program brings these insights to life through:

Global reports: Benchmark your organization against IDC’s global predictions and see where your industry is headed next. Become a subscriber to access the full reports.
Webinars: Join IDC analysts and explore how to make the agentic pivot and operationalize AI strategy across your enterprise.
Events: Connect with peers and IDC experts at regional FutureScape sessions worldwide to translate foresight into action.
Analyst commentary: Access quick takes, videos, and blogs linking FutureScape predictions to real-time market shifts.

Together, these touchpoints help leaders turn IDC foresight into measurable strategy, bridging the gap between understanding and execution.

Are you ready to chart the path forward?

The crosscurrents of disruption aren’t slowing down. Economic, technological, and societal forces are converging faster than ever. But with the right navigation, they can become momentum.

IDC’s 2026 FutureScape provides that compass. It reveals not only what’s coming next but how to prepare, equipping business and technology leaders with the confidence to steer through uncertainty and harness agentic AI as a force for innovation, trust, and prosperity.

Because the future isn’t being built somewhere else. It’s being built right now.

Be part of it with IDC’s 2026 FutureScape.

In a world where tech decisions move markets, the analyst voice carries more weight than ever. But for many organizations, analyst engagement remains a missed opportunity; seen as a checkbox instead of a strategic lever. If you’re still treating analysts as one-way validators, it’s time to rethink your approach. 

IDC research finds that analyst validation is a top-three factor for C-suite buyers in high-stakes decisions, with 7–12 stakeholders involved in most enterprise tech purchases. Organizations that brief analysts quarterly and use peer benchmarks are 3x more likely to achieve market visibility and above-average renewal rates. 

Source: IDC CX Path 2025: Vendor Ratings and The Smart Office Technology Buyer Stakeholder Map: Personas, Priorities, and Pain Points

Welcome to the new era of analyst relations: where influence is earned, insight is mutual, and every interaction can shape the market. 

Analysts don’t just observe the market, they help shape it

Analysts aren’t just keeping score. They inform buyer decisions, guide vendor roadmaps, and influence how innovation gets adopted. They hold the power to elevate your story or challenge it at critical moments in the buyer journey. 

Yet too many organizations treat analyst engagement as reactive—a scramble before a report, a briefing once a quarter, a missed chance to shape perception. 

Here’s the truth: Proactive analysts engagement shapes the market.

The risk of misalignment: When narratives don’t match

When your public story says one thing, but analysts say another, the disconnect stalls deals, confuses customers, and erodes trust. 

Why it matters: IDC research shows that C-suite buyers increasingly rely on analyst validation to guide high-stakes decisions. If analyst commentary doesn’t reinforce your core message, you’re not just invisible, you’re at risk of disqualification.

Source: The Smart Office Technology Buyer Stakeholder Map: Personas, Priorities, and Pain Points, IDC, September 2025

From engagement to influence: 3 rules for analyst relations that work

1. Lead with evidence, not ego

Skip the hyperbole. Analysts are data-driven thinkers. Give them what they need to validate your claims: proof points, customer results, trend alignment, and most importantly, the “so what.” 

 IDC offers analyst-facing tools like our Spending Guides and Wallet data—so you can tie your message to buyer priorities, industry momentum, and hard budget data. 

2. Treat analysts as strategic allies

Briefings shouldn’t just be broadcasts. The best relationships are built on transparency and dialogue. Let analysts challenge your thinking; they’ll help sharpen your go-to-market message. 

💡 Use IDC’s Tracker® and Black Book data to anticipate market shifts before your competitors do, and invite analysts into the conversation early. 

3. Align internally first

Mixed signals across sales, marketing, and product derail analyst relationships. Build a unified, evidence-backed narrative that connects the dots between your product roadmap, market opportunity, and customer value. 

💡 IDC helps companies create that shared view, grounded in trusted tech intelligence and aligned across GTM functions. 

Why it pays off: Analysts influence in action

Organizations that invest in strategic analyst relations aren’t just better positioned in reports, they’re better aligned with buyer expectations, more credible in competitive cycles, and more confident in their decisions. 

And confidence is contagious. 

Get started: Make every analyst interaction count

Book a Strategy Session: Work with IDC experts to map your analyst engagement plan to 2026 priorities. 

Download the AR Checklist: Ensure your story is ready to win in the next wave of reports.

See What Top AR Teams Are Doing Differently: Tap into benchmarks and best practices from award-winning analyst programs. 

You can’t control what the market says. But you can shape who says it—and how they say it. Engage analysts not as observers, but as partners in market influence. 

IDC has been named IIAR Analyst Firm of the Year five times running. Why? Because the most respected companies trust us to inform, validate, and amplify their message at the moments that matter most. 

Let’s build your analyst strategy to win in 2026; on purpose, with purpose. 

As AI reshapes Martech and Adtech, pricing is shifting from technical inputs and usage metrics to measurable business outcomes. This isn’t just about covering AI’s costs, it’s a strategic opportunity to stand out in a crowded, commoditized market.

Legacy pricing models, flat-rate, usage-based, tiered, per-user, can’t keep up with AI’s compounding, often invisible value. AI automates, optimizes, and delivers insights in ways these models were never built to capture. In this environment, pricing itself becomes a competitive weapon.

For both buyers and vendors, this is more than a tactical adjustment. It’s a chance to redefine expectations, relationships, and what ROI really means in AI-powered marketing and advertising. This article breaks down why the old playbook fails, what’s replacing it, and how smart vendors can turn pricing into a market differentiator.

Why Traditional SaaS Pricing Breaks in an AI World

The familiar pricing playbook wasn’t built for AI:

Flat-rate models treat a static software package the same as one that’s constantly learning and optimizing, leaving both value and revenue on the table.
Usage-based models miss the mark because AI’s value isn’t about how many queries you run or emails you send. It’s in the decisions made, outcomes improved, and time saved.
Tiered pricing quickly becomes outdated as AI capabilities advance, creating misalignment between what customers need and what they’re paying for.
Per-user models overlook AI’s ability to amplify small teams. AI does much of its best work invisibly, unlinked to logins or headcount.
Feature-based and credit-based models struggle with AI’s unpredictability and variability. Locking customers into fixed credits or feature bundles risks alienating them when AI’s true value lies in flexibility and continuous improvement.

The bottom line: AI fundamentally changes how value is created, and old pricing models can’t capture it.

The Case for AI-Driven, Value-Based Pricing

AI fundamentally changes the economics of Martech and Adtech platforms, and pricing needs to reflect that shift. Traditional models charge by seats, queries, or feature bundles, but AI delivers value in compounding, often invisible ways: automating decisions, uncovering insights, accelerating campaigns, and improving business outcomes. Vendors that fail to align pricing with these benefits risk undervaluing their products and alienating customers.

Value-based pricing ties costs to clear, measurable business outcomes. Instead of billing by usage or features, vendors price based on metrics like:

Conversion rates and revenue growth
Customer engagement and retention improvements
Operational efficiencies and cost reductions
Faster time-to-market for campaigns
Risk mitigation and data accuracy gains

For example, a predictive AI personalization tool might charge based on uplift in campaign ROI or increase in customer lifetime value rather than by audience size or impressions served.

To support this, vendors should move beyond flat subscriptions and introduce AI-specific pricing tiers. Basic levels might cover standard automation, while premium options unlock advanced capabilities like real-time personalization, media mix modeling, or predictive lead scoring. This allows customers to scale investment in line with the value AI delivers.

Additionally, vendors should leverage dynamic pricing models that evolve alongside the customer relationship. AI-powered solutions improve over time, pricing should, too. Regularly reviewing customer outcomes, benchmarking against performance targets, and adjusting pricing accordingly ensures long-term alignment and value capture.

New pricing levers also come into play. Vendors can quantify AI’s contributions by measuring:

Net-new revenue opportunities unlocked by AI features
Productivity gains through automated workflows
Competitive advantages like faster insights or superior targeting
Customer loyalty improvements from AI-driven personalization

These are tangible, defensible metrics that buyers care about and that vendors can tie directly to pricing structures.

Ultimately, AI-driven, value-based pricing is a strategic weapon. It deepens customer relationships, differentiates vendors from commoditized competitors, and ensures that pricing keeps pace with AI’s accelerating impact.

What It Takes to Make Value-Based Pricing Work

Implementing value-based pricing requires more than clever packaging; it demands organizational change. Pricing strategy can’t live in finance alone. It belongs in customer success and strategy teams, focused on long-term outcomes, not one-off sales.

Continuous feedback loops are crucial. AI-powered solutions evolve fast and pricing must adapt just as quickly. Vendors need to regularly evaluate performance, update pricing as capabilities grow, and maintain open, outcome-focused customer conversations.

To support this, vendors should expand pricing levers beyond the usual suspects. AI’s ability to unlock new revenue streams, increase market share, and boost differentiation should factor into pricing. Vendors must account for AI’s impact on productivity, risk reduction, and loyalty areas traditional models often ignore.

Technology End User (Buyer) Considerations. 

For Martech and Adtech buyers, this shift means focusing on outcome alignment and vendor accountability. Buyers should prioritize:

Vendors offering outcome-driven pricing models — like Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) — that emphasize ongoing performance, not static commitments.
Vendors who demonstrate clear, measurable business value — whether through native features or integrated ecosystems.
Flexibility and transparency — no one wants to decode AI credits or compute hours. Vendors win by stripping away jargon and clearly stating what outcomes they deliver, and what it’ll cost.

Conclusion

AI is forcing both vendors and buyers to rethink value and pricing. Traditional models can’t keep up with AI’s dynamic, invisible, and compounding business impact. Outcome-based and value-driven pricing approaches are quickly becoming essential for anyone hoping to compete.

Vendors that treat pricing as a strategic lever not a back-office task will outpace competitors and lock in long-term advantage. The real winners in AI-powered Martech and Adtech will be those bold enough to rethink what customers pay for, why it matters, and how to turn pricing into a lasting market differentiator.

AI is no longer just a feature in your product. It’s part of how your buyers behave and interact with your brand.

While your team has been working hard to build AI into services and solutions, buyers have been sharpening their own AI skills too. AI is now embedded in how they research, evaluate, and validate decisions.

In this new landscape, it’s not the companies that simply offer AI that stand out. It’s the ones that know how to market it and use AI to their advantage.

So if your product is changing, and your buyers are changing, it is time for your go-to-market (GTM) strategy to change too.  

Why marketing feels the squeeze

This can cause a lot of pressure on marketing teams who are already battling against competing demands from executives:

CEOs expect bolder innovation and faster growth.
CFOs want clear ROI from AI investments.
CIO/CTOs demand secure integration aligned with technology roadmaps.

39% of C-suite executives say customer acquisition is marketing’s top priority. 

As a result, marketings role is expanding dramatically. Teams must now own buyer intelligence, ensure they stand out in a saturated market, and orchestrate a connected journey across digital and human interaction.

Without recalibration, these demands can overwhelm marketing. But with the right insights, the pressure cascade becomes a launchpad for momentum and leadership.

Your product changed. So did your buyer.

Once AI was built into solutions, buyers not only began to accept it, they started to expect it with competitors following suit. Now, with buyers leveraging AI on their side, the rules of engagement have shifted.

Sixty-nine percent of buyers will only engage with content that feels personalized. That means messaging and approach needs to change. It’s about creating the right messaging that reaches the right buyer, at the right time, in the right channel, and in the right format.

And it’s not only one buyer anymore. Modern buying committees can include VPs of customer experience, VPs of cybersecurity, heads of data and AI strategy, and IT procurement managers.

Each of these stakeholders approaches the journey differently and enters at a different stage. If your strategy doesn’t account for each one, it can derail the deal. Marketings job is to anticipate, tailor, and orchestrate messaging for all.

Understanding who is in the buying committee is only half the challenge. The other half is keeping pace with how they buy. AI has made the journey more fluid, more self-directed, and spread across countless touchpoints—all of which buyers expect to feel connected.

The AI-assisted buyer journey

Understanding who is in the buying committee is only half the challenge. The other half is keeping pace with how they buy. AI has made the journey more fluid, more self-directed, and spread across countless touchpoints—all of which buyers expect to feel connected.

Today’s buyer journey is fluid, AI-assisted, and omnichannel. IDC research shows that buyers seamlessly move between digital and human touchpoints: reading analyst reports, attending webinars, engaging with ads, visiting websites, and testing self-service tools.

At the same time, they use AI to weigh trade-offs, simulate outcomes, and filter vendors before sales ever enter the picture.

Success isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about making each interaction intentional. A diagnostic tool can help uncover a blind spot. A webinar can reframe strategy. And a sales conversation can build directly off of what buyers have already explored.

When every step feels orchestrated, you remove friction and create momentum in the journey.

Recalibrate your GTM journey

So what does that recalibration look like?

Build a buyer-first intelligence engine
Move beyond assumptions. Use real-time signals and verified insights to guide your strategy.
Differentiate with outcomes, not features
Everyone has AI. The winners will frame their solutions around measurable customer impact.
Orchestrate across personas and channels
Ensure handoffs don’t become gaps. Design transitions that feel intentional, not accidental.
Align across the business
Sales, product, CX, and marketing must share the same buyer narrative. Without alignment, execution fractures. With alignment, you unlock momentum.

Those who start recalibrating today won’t just keep pace with change, they will define it.

Download the IDC eBook Leading Through Change to learn how to recalibrate your GTM with real buyer intelligence, omnichannel excellence, and outcome-driven differentiation.

AI isn’t just transforming businesses, it’s quietly reshaping the consumer experience in ways that are more personal, emotional, and surprising. For B2C brands, this evolution brings both new opportunities to engage customers and new expectations to meet. For technology vendors, it opens up a fast-growing market to empower brands with the tools, platforms, and infrastructure they’ll need to compete.

At IDC FutureScape Technology and AI Predictions 2026 on November 14, 2025, in Singapore, I’ll be sharing our latest outlook on how AI is evolving in the consumer space. While enterprise AI, China’s AI landscape, and service providers will be covered by my fellow speakers, I’ll focus on how AI is changing the way people live, create, and connect, as well as, what this means for the businesses serving them.

Here’s a preview of the themes and their implications:

1. AI as the new creative partner

From social media posts to full-blown entertainment, AI is becoming the go-to tool for content creation. Consumers are using it to produce videos, music, and writing that rival professional output, and in some cases, they’re starting to prefer AI-generated content over human-made. The implications for media, marketing, and creative industries are massive.

For B2C brands: Marketing, media, and customer engagement strategies must evolve as audiences consume and even co-create with AI. The line between brand-generated and consumer-generated content will blur.

For tech vendors: Demand will rise for platforms that enable safe, brand-aligned, and scalable content creation, as well as tools to detect, curate, and amplify AI-made content.

2. Emotional Intelligence meets artificial intelligence

AI companions are moving beyond productivity and into mental wellness and emotional connection. Whether it’s helping users manage stress or forming meaningful bonds, these agents are becoming trusted confidants. It’s a shift that could redefine how we think about relationships with technology and with ourselves. Consumer GenAI adoption is projected to approach 4 billion users in 2028 according to IDC’s Consumer Market Model.

For B2C brands: Opportunities emerge to build products and services that prioritize emotional well-being and create deeper, more authentic customer relationships.

For tech vendors: Expect a growing need for AI solutions that combine personalization with ethical safeguards, data sensitivity, and cultural nuance.

3. AI as your personal life manager

Imagine outsourcing your daily decisions to an AI assistant. From managing your calendar to handling your shopping and finances, AI is stepping into the role of life manager. And yes, people are willing to pay for it. This isn’t just convenience; it’s a new category of consumer service.

For B2C brands: New service categories will emerge, where customer loyalty hinges on how seamlessly brands integrate into AI-managed lifestyles.

For tech vendors: This opens demand for APIs, integrations, and platforms that allow AI assistants to securely transact, recommend, and automate across ecosystems.

4. Hybrid AI agents on consumer devices

The next generation of consumer devices will feature hybrid AI agents, working both on-device and in the cloud. This model balances privacy, performance, and personalization, enabling smarter, more responsive experiences without always needing to phone home. It’s a major leap forward in how AI integrates into daily life. More than half of PCs shipping next year (and more than two thirds of smartphones) will have NPUs to enable on-device AI.

For B2C brands: Devices will become more intelligent touchpoints, reshaping customer engagement models. Privacy-conscious consumers will expect “smart but safe” experiences.

For tech vendors: There’s a race to power these hybrid environments with optimized chips, edge models, and management tools for scale.

5. With power comes risk

As AI becomes more embedded in consumer hardware, model integrity becomes a real concern. We’re already seeing enterprises grapple with corrupted or misaligned on-device AI models and similar risks could soon affect consumers. Expect a growing need for oversight tools and safeguards, even in the devices we carry every day.

For B2C brands: Trust will become a competitive differentiator. Brands must anticipate and proactively manage AI-related risks that impact customer safety.

For tech vendors: This creates a market for monitoring, auditing, and security solutions tailored to consumer AI applications.

These trends point to a future where AI isn’t just something consumers use; it’s something they live with. For B2C brands, that means building more human, responsive, and resilient connections with customers. For technology vendors, it’s an unprecedented chance to help those brands deliver on the promise of AI at scale.

Seats are limited, register today for IDC FutureScapes Technology and AI Predictions 2026.

Qualcomm invited analysts to its annual Snapdragon Summit again this year, where the spotlight was shone on the company’s latest processors for both phones and PCs, as well as the role of NPUs (neural processing units) in enabling new on-device AI experiences. My colleagues and I wrote extensively about these announcements here. However, on the final day, a surprise announcement brought forth a totally new narrative: the unveiling of a Snapdragon X Elite-powered PC from an unexpected player, Humain.

For those unfamiliar, Humain is not a traditional PC vendor. It’s a Saudi Arabian AI datacenter company focused on full-stack AI solutions, including its Allam foundation model tailored for Arabic-speaking markets. Earlier this year, Humain made headlines by bringing Qualcomm back into the datacenter space with its Cloud AI 100 Ultra chips. Now, with the Horizon Pro, it’s entering the PC market—but not in the way most would expect.

The PC as a trojan horse for enterprise AI

Humain’s Horizon Pro isn’t about competing with HP, Dell, or Lenovo in the commercial PC space. Instead, it’s a strategic enabler for a broader vision: simplifying enterprise software stacks through a conversational interface called Humain One, layered on top of Windows. This interface leverages the NPU for secure, on-device orchestration of enterprise workflows, with the goal of abstracting away the complexity of legacy applications.

At its core, Humain One seeks to replace HR, finance & legal apps. For example, an employee requests a vacation via the text interface, and the app handles payroll and approvals end-to-end. The company claims that internally, it cut HR from 11 staff members to one plus the AI agent.

CEO Tareq Amin, known for disrupting telecom norms with OpenRAN at Rakuten, made it clear during the Summit: “I really don’t care about making money on the PC itself. The value add is on top of it.” While the Horizon Pro boasts premium hardware features like an OLED display and a high-quality touchpad, the real innovation lies in the software and services model.

A subscription model for enterprise transformation

Humain’s business model centers on enterprise subscriptions, not hardware margins. The Horizon Pro is a gateway to a secure, AI-driven orchestration layer that could reshape how businesses interact with their digital infrastructure. The ultimate goal: To replace some or all of the hundreds or even thousands of apps that enterprises rely on, including many SaaS apps, with agents at a fraction of the cost. It’s a challenging concept to wrap your brain around: replacing Salesforce, Workday, and SAP isn’t straightforward. But if Humain can run its entire company on AI agents, without any legacy ERP, it points to a fascinating shakeup in how enterprises think about computing.

Amin mentioned offerings for students and an Ultra 5G variant, but the core focus remains enterprise transformation and leveraging the unique strengths of access to capital and energy, and agentic local language agents that will create operational workflows and personalize them for an organization and user.

This approach aligns with broader industry trends where NPUs can enable a shift in how we think about PCs—not just as endpoints, but as intelligent, secure nodes in a larger AI-driven ecosystem. The NPU helps this shift, enabling real-time inference, privacy-preserving AI, and new user experiences.

Challenges ahead – and strategic advantages

To be sure, Humain faces an uphill battle. Enterprises are notoriously resistant to overhauling their software stacks, and entrenched players with mature sales channels dominate the commercial PC market. But Humain has a few strategic advantages:

Regional relevance: Its Arabic-language LLM positions it uniquely for Middle Eastern enterprises, although its ambitions are surely global too given the English language demonstrations provided.
Government backing: With ties to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, there’s potential for deeper regional partnerships, although Amin said that this model hasn’t been accepted by large PC vendors yet.
Visionary leadership: Amin’s track record suggests he’s not afraid to challenge incumbents and rethink industry norms.

What to watch next

Humain plans to reveal more at the 9th Edition of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh in late October. Amin emphasized that partnerships—especially open-source collaborations—will be key to scaling the Humain One platform. While a licensing model for the Horizon Pro hardware isn’t on the table yet, it’s clear that Humain is thinking beyond the box.

This is a horizontal business model approach by a hyperscaler that is looking to disrupt the current marketplace by trying to redefine the user experience. It could be appealing to enable a premium set of devices without having to charge consumers premium prices. It provides hardware and AI as a service for a new set of users who are not bound by legacy workflows and applications. And If the PC is adopted, it could open room for smartphones, kiosks, cameras, drones, and wearables connected to each other and AI infrastructure that Humain is building in the region.

In many ways, this is a small blip on the radar for now. But it’s one worth watching. Like OpenRAN, Humain’s approach forces the industry to rethink assumptions. Even if its hardware market share remains modest, the impact could be significant—especially if it inspires others to reimagine the role of the PC in enterprise AI.