6 Scary Predictions for AI in 2026

When OpenAI declared a “code red” this month to refocus its teams on competing with Google, I couldn’t help but think back to December three years ago when the companies’ roles were reversed. Google was the one blasting the sirens to catch up to OpenAI. What followed the next month, in January 2023, were the first sweeping layoffs in Google’s history. “A difficult decision to set us up for the future,” as the company described it at the time.

I wonder whether the ChatGPT developer could make similar workforce cuts early next year. This speculation inspired me to come up with a whole set of predictions about what might come in the year ahead. Here’s a look at six of the ideas, fine-tuned with the real intelligence of WIRED colleagues.

Communities across the world are fighting the construction of data centers. In the US, many activists are organizing on social media using tools such as Facebook Groups. The Chinese and Russian governments continue to exploit social media to disseminate disinformation masquerading as real news and authentic opinion. Slowing data center development in the US would be a boon for China and Russia, which are both seeking to surpass the US in industrial and military AI capabilities.

Austin Wang, a researcher at the nonprofit think tank RAND who has studied China-controlled propaganda farms, says there’s no signs of concerning activity right now. “Many newly established anti-data-center pages seem controlled by real US citizens so far,” Wang says.

But as the anti-data-center fervor picks up, China and Russia could try to pile on to the grassroots organizing. And the work has gotten even easier thanks to AI that can quickly generate images and videos to rile up people on social media.

In 2026, tech conferences from the Consumer Electronics Show to Amazon’s hardware event will likely be buzzing about AI-powered robots. Google and other big tech companies have spent years trying to train robots to handle household tasks through repeated practice. But now there’s a fresh round of hype. The type of AI models used in services such as ChatGPT and Gemini are being integrated into robots in hopes that they will handle chores, like folding clothes, with less training and greater accuracy.

This past September, Google released a video of a robot sorting trash, compost, and recycling in response to a user’s voice commands. When Google executives take to the stage at the company’s next I/O conference, I expect them to prompt a robot to take on tasks such as, for example, sliding a pizza into a type of oven it’s never encountered before and, while it cooks, retrieving a half-full Diet Coke from the back of a crowded fridge.

Barak Turovsky, the recently departed chief AI officer at General Motors and a former leader in Google’s AI division, says advancements in robots’ capabilities are possible because large language models can understand a dishwasher manual, learn how to operate a dishwasher from watching a video, and comprehend how to grab a specific part by deciphering a drawing. “The next frontier for large language models is the physical world,” he says.

To be clear, the showcases of next year will be demonstrations. Selling technology that could physically wreck people’s homes if they err will first require additional testing.

2025 began with China’s DeepSeek showing the world that you don’t need a ton of cutting-edge GPUs to make a solid AI system. This prompted a fleeting stock market selloff over fears that chip sales would tank. The fears didn’t materialize. But next year may bring a bigger, once-again ephemeral dip. Leading AI companies may need a reset to doubledown on successful investments and trim struggling ventures after a period of torrid growth, and their moves could end up being cast by tech pundits as a sign of overspending on AI data centers and researchers.

OpenAI has pentupled during the past two years to about 4,500 employees, according to company data. It is fighting many battles—not just against Google—and expanding into many new facets, like designing its own chips alongside Broadcom, so the personnel growth could be warranted. But does it still have the best people in the best roles? Newly onboarded management may see things differently, and that’s why the 10-year-old organization’s first major layoffs may be coming next year. If that happens, other AI labs could follow OpenAI’s lead with their own restructuring.