Dec. 19, 2025 –
As we look ahead to 2026, we see intelligence increasingly being embedded within physical products and everyday interactions. This shift will be powered by rapid adoption of digital identity technologies such as near-field communication (NFC) alongside AI and agentic AI tools that automate workflows, improve efficiency, and accelerate innovation across the product lifecycle.
The sharp rise in NFC adoption—with 92% of brands already using or planning to use it in products in the next year—signals appetite to unlock the true value of the connected world. Enabling intelligence in new places gives brands the opportunity to bridge physical and digital experiences for positive social, commercial, and environmental outcomes.
Regulatory milestones, such as the phased rollout of the EU Digital Product Passport, along with sustainability pressures and the need to ensure transparency to drive trust will be key catalysts for edge and item-level AI.
In the year ahead, companies will unlock significant benefits in customer experience, sustainability, compliance, and supply chain efficiency by embedding intelligence from the edge to individual items and devices.
Let’s dig deeper into the technology trends shaping 2026.
Driven by the shift from pure inference to on-device training and continuous, adaptive learning, 2026 will see strong growth in edge AI demand. Specialized chips such as low-power machine learning accelerators, sensor-integrated chips, and memory-optimized chips will be used in consumer electronics, smart cities, and industrial IoT.
Next, new packaging approaches will become the proving ground for performance, cost efficiency, and miniaturization in intelligent edge devices.