Looking ahead to 2026: experts’ insights on AI, cybersecurity & coaching
Four professors share their insights into certain key trends in their fields – that leaders should be aware of in 2026. These include a look at the opportunities and challenges related to the development of AI, cybersecurity and leadership coaching.
01/26/2026
4 min
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Artificial Intelligence – Loïc PLÉ & Jonas DEBRULLE
AI will increasingly become the backbone of organizations
In 2026, AI will increasingly become the backbone of organizations, structured around four key and complementary principles that we defined in our book “Mastering AI for Strategic Business Success.”
First, AI will play the role of a strategic analyst. It will transform companies’ ability to collect and decode complex market indicators and base their decisions on solid evidence. Next, AI will become a true strategic enabler. This means it will accelerate operational implementation through intelligent automation, creating new sources of competitive advantage. This development will be amplified by the rise of agentic AI, capable of autonomously planning and executing analytical tasks.
However, this facilitation can also lead to two major pitfalls. The first is ai-generated “workslop,”. This refers to deliverables that are superficially correct but lack depth. The ease with which AI produces content can encourage certain employees to use it mechanically, without critical thinking, leading to a rise of low-quality content. This drift is all the more dangerous for organizations because it can be difficult to detect. The second pitfall is the one posed by “shadow AI.” Faced with official tools that employees deem too restrictive (or faced with the absence of available AI tools), some will increasingly turn to unapproved AI solutions, exposing their organization to significant risks regarding data confidentiality and regulatory compliance.
Our third key principle: AI will take on the role of a collaborative partner, based on human-AI interactions that balance algorithmic efficiency with contextual judgment. In other words, humans rely on AI to be more efficient but remain in control by retaining the final decision to use, or not, AI outputs. Formalizing this role will help limit workflow issues and serve as a quality assurance for clients. This will address the growing demand for contractual guarantees confirming that work has been substantially completed or revised by humans. We can even imagine the emergence of a “human-verified” label, which will become a mark of quality for certain clients.
Finally, we believe that dynamic learning loops will allow humans and AI to evolve together, each feeding off the other. But this co-evolution is threatened by the emergence of a blind spot. 2025 showed that tasks traditionally assigned to junior employees were increasingly delegated to AI, preventing them from gaining the experience needed to become tomorrow’s experts. Both companies and educators will therefore need to invent new training paths or risk weakening their talent pool in the long term. The competitive advantage will thus belong to organizations that can coherently integrate AI into a human-centered project.
Discover more analyses from Loïc PLÉ and Jonas DEBRULLE, authors of a new book: « Mastering AI for Strategic Business Success ».
Cybersecurity – Christine ABDALLA-MIKHAIEL
Deepfakes will turn disinformation into a cyberweapon of scale
In terms of cybersecurity, one of the key risks that leaders in companies and organizations will need to take into account, is the one posed by deepfakes.
Deepfakes have moved from novelty to infrastructure for disinformation and cyberwarfare. AI-generated audio, video, and text will be cheap, fast, and convincing enough to erode trust at scale, not just in public discourse, but inside companies and governments. The most damaging impact will not be a single spectacular fake, but persistent ambiguity: the inability to confidently verify what is real in moments that require fast decisions.
Corporate and non-corporate stakeholders will increasingly have to integrate the risks associated with deepfakes into hybrid cybersecurity operations. We will see coordinated campaigns where fake executive voices trigger fraudulent transfers, fabricated military or political statements destabilize markets, or synthetic “leaks” amplify social tensions ahead of elections or crises. Deepfakes will be paired with cyber intrusions, data theft, and psychological operations to maximize confusion and delay effective responses from organizations.
The strategic shift is clear: cyberwarfare will target cognition and trust as much as systems and data. In response, leading organizations will need more than technical detection tools. By 2026, organizational cyber-resilience will depend on governance, pre-defined verification protocols, identity authentication for critical communications, and executive training to operate under uncertainty. Trust will become a security asset and a primary attack surface.
Discover more analyses by Christine ABDALLA MIKHAEIL, She contributes to the executive certificate in Cybersecurity Management which is delivered in French.
Leadership & coaching: Jacques ANGOT
Coaching based on improvement will make way for ‘unlearning’
The major trend for 2026 will be paradoxical: coaching will no longer aim to help learners develop skills, but rather to ‘unlearn’ them. This entails unlearning certain managerial reflexes that have been inherited from a stable, hierarchical and predictable world…one that no longer exists.
Today’s leaders often come to coaching with obsolete skills such as excessive control, or management based on indicators. These skills made them successful in the past, but are now present major obstacles.
Executive Coaching in 2026 will therefore seek to tackle invisible automatisms: the need for control, over-responsibility, and the posture of knowing it all. Mentoring will evolve into a demanding mirror role, capable of highlighting what needs to be abandoned, not just reinforced. The great human transformation will not be spectacular. It will be discreet because it will consist of ‘’strategic offloading ».
In 2026, the most advanced organizations will no longer ask ‘How can we do better?’ but ‘What do we need to stop doing to stay alive (and be authentic)?’
Discover more analyses by Jacques ANGOT, the author of many publications on this top. He also contributes to the ‘Coach and Mentor for Transformation’ certificate at the school which is delivered in French.
Photo: istock – peterschreiber.media
