What’s coming for mid-market tech firms in 2026?
By Kevin Smith
There’s little doubt that AI will continue to be the biggest force in tech in 2026. But with industry analysts warning that the AI sector is also showing signs of being a bubble, the tech universe may look very different by the end of the year than it does at the beginning.
What does this mean for startups or mid-market tech firms? With most of the AI conversation dominated by corporate behemoths like Google, Nvidia and Microsoft, startups and mid-market companies should use 2026 to ask questions about what tech and AI could look like in a post-bubble world — one that may swing back toward placing greater value on the human in the loop.
Keep reading to learn more about what’s coming for tech in 2026 and how you can adapt to meet the moment.
What key tech trends will shape 2026?
AI will likely continue to dominate both headlines and investor attention in 2026. But watch for consequences resulting from AI’s growing penetration of the broader economy, including job losses, strategic shifts, data governance challenges and, if warnings of a bubble do prove true, significant fallout across sectors should that bubble burst.
Here are some key trends you should be aware of:
- Jobs will disappear or evolve: No one really knows how AI will affect employment. But it’s fair to say that some jobs will be lost, while others will change. Upskilling will be essential here, as companies seek to help their workforces adapt to this uncertain, rapidly changing environment.
- Data centers will drive huge investment (and be a canary in the coal mine): Cutting-edge AI tech depends on physical data centers, which cost enormous amounts of resources to build and operate. While companies like Meta and OpenAI have committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data center construction, any pullback on those investments will be a major warning sign for the overall financial health of the tech industry.
- Multi-agentic AI tools are coming: AI agents allow you to automate certain routine tasks, but struggle with more complex operations. However, companies are exploring creating systems that string several different AI agents together, potentially allowing more sophisticated work to be automated as well.
- Firms are moving to faster planning cycles: Because the world is changing so fast, businesses are moving away from traditional 12-month planning cycles. Instead, more leaders are adopting priority-based planning that allows them to shift direction more quickly when needed.
- Governance and compliance will demand more attention: Questions around data ownership, governance and liability will likely only grow. AI tools are collecting vast amounts of data, but who is responsible here — and who gets to reap the rewards?
- Medicine and healthtech will likely shine: The healthcare industry is facing massive Medicaid cuts, which will push hospitals and providers to turn to digital or AI tools to save money. This offers healthtech firms a huge opportunity to prove their value or develop new products to help healthcare adapt to its new financial realities.
- Cybersecurity challenges: AI has only raised the cybersecurity stakes, with AI tools both powering cyberattacks and increasing the quantity of data up for grabs in a theft. But while businesses will need to evaluate and upgrade their cyber defenses to avoid the most expensive damages from an attack, executives should take heart that better cybersecurity is often worth more to investors or buyers.
The big question: Is AI a bubble?
In recent months, Nvidia’s value alone has reached as high as $5 trillion dollars, or over 8% of the S&P 500, with other tech giants also settling in at multitrillion-dollar valuations. And AI infrastructure investment (read: data center construction) drove 92% of the U.S. GDP growth during the first six months of 2025.
This may very well not be sustainable. So far, generative AI itself is wildly unprofitable, costing hundreds of billions of investment dollars to operate while generating just a tiny fraction of that in returns. To make the math work out, companies will have to either drastically lower operating costs or massively increase user fees — and neither of those options may be viable.
So what happens if investors, many of which are the largest tech companies themselves, sour on bankrolling generative AI technology?
Industry observers have pointed to the early 2000s dotcom bubble as a useful example. The dotcom bubble wiped out $5 trillion in value from the stock market, pushing many tech companies of that era to either merge or shut down entirely. A gen-AI collapse would likely have a similar impact on not just tech firms themselves, but the economy as whole, raising the specter of a recession.
However, gen-AI is just one element of AI technology, so while a crash would shake the foundations of the tech industry, it’s unlikely to shatter them. A correction would likely mark a shift in direction more than the end of AI as we know it.
Mid-market opportunity: Embracing the human in the loop
With so much of the money in AI concentrated at the top, startups and middle-market tech firms may wonder what their role is here. One bet to consider: focusing on how AI tech can serve the human in the loop.
What happens to all the people whose jobs are being lost or dramatically changed by AI? How can those people continue to contribute to the economy? And what about younger generations coming of age in a world where more entry-level roles are being turned over to AI?
Companies like Google and OpenAI don’t seem to be engaging with these challenges. So there’s an opportunity for middle-market firms to lead the way here. AI healthtech companies, for example, should dive into questions about what doctors and nurses need to thrive in a modern hospital environment.
And with many consumers indicating distaste for AI-generated output, it’s smaller firms that are also poised to quickly adapt should that turn into a full-blown backlash. Rather than just assuming AI chatbots will replace customer service agents, could firms instead leverage tech solutions to bolster human-to-human conversations?
Think about AI as a tool to benefit people rather than make them redundant. What could come from that?
How Wipfli can help
We help venture-backed tech firms to strengthen financials, upgrade systems, boost operational performance and increase valuation. Let’s talk about your goals for 2026 and create a roadmap to achieve them. Start a conversation.
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