AI gets properly useful

AI has been the buzzword of the past two years, but most of its practical uses have lived quietly in the background. In 2026, that changes. AI will become far more visible in everyday workflows, transforming how people actually work rather than just how companies talk about innovation. Game studios, anime production, publishing, and marketing are already augmenting their pipelines with AI, and this approach will spread to many more professions. The real shift won’t be replacement, but reduction — less grunt work, fewer repetitive tasks, and faster iteration. As models consolidate and infrastructure scales, AI costs are likely to come down, making these tools accessible beyond just the biggest players. The vast new data centres coming online will increasingly be used to serve AI at scale, not just train ever-larger models.