The technology is real but immature. The trajectory is clear but the timeline is not. Most organizations deploying long-running AI in 2026 will learn expensive lessons. A few will gain genuine advantages. The difference will come down to three things: where they deploy, how they govern, and whether they understand what "autonomous" actually means in practice.
In late 2025, a technique with the absurd name "Ralph Wiggum" went viral among practitioners. The name comes from a Simpsons character—deliberately silly, because the core idea is almost embarrassingly simple.
In March 2025, a research organization called METR published a finding that got less attention than it deserved. They had been measuring something unfashionable: how long AI systems could work on tasks before they broke down. Not what they could do in a single interaction. METR wanted to know how long they could sustain coherent, useful effort.
We are living through a period of immense technological possibilities. Across industries, leaders are being inspired by what AI can achieve, yet realizing that value requires more than just installing new software. To bridge the gap between a successful proof-of-concept and scalable business value, we must embrace a spirit of process reinvention. The projects that succeed are those that treat AI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for cultural evolution.
Edouard de Mézerac outlines how agentic AI is set to redefine everything from consumer shopping to internal retail operations, and how companies can unlock its full potential.
For much of the past decade, the UK property industry has spoken about Artificial Intelligence as something that is coming: imminent, inevitable, but perpetually just over the horizon. Conference agendas are crowded with PropTech panels, innovation strategies are filled with references to data and automation, and most large firms can point to at least a handful of pilots, lackluster initiatives or proofs of concept.
As a testament to its leadership in data and AI for the built environment, Artefact co-chaired the writing and publishing of the 1st global edition of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) AI Standards. These standards, applicable to all 150,000 chartered surveyors from the 9th of March 2026, are believed to be the first published by any national property trade body and will serve as a template for future guidance on responsible AI deployment.
To understand the landscape of 2026, we must revisit the trajectory of the experience economy over the past few years. In the immediate post-pandemic period, we witnessed the phenomenon of the “Revenge of Presence”: an explosion of mass events, festivals, and performance-driven wellness—marathons, triathlons, and frenetic networking agendas in crowded cafés. However, this excess gave rise to a new pathology: sensory fatigue. The executive of 2026 arrives at events saturated by screens, shallow networking, and endless promises of productivity.
In an era where every customer interaction produces a data point, marketing transformation is no longer just about technology adoption, it is about intelligence. The next evolution of digital marketing isn’t defined by isolated tools, but by how seamlessly data and AI converge to create meaningful, measurable growth.
