Cloud and AI Predictions for 2026

Aaron and Brian make some bold predictions for the 2026 Cloud and AI markets, as well as reviewing the biggest issues going into 2026.  SHOW: 989SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #989 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW NOTES:CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - NOV 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - OCT 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - SEPT 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - AUG 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - JUL 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - JUN 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - MAY 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - APR 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - MAR 2025 (show)2026 CLOUD + AI PREDICTIONS (AND BIG ISSUES TO REVIEW)OpenAI Revenues and Focus AreasNVIDIA customer profitabilityCompanies moving to GOOG TPUsEnterprise success beyond CoPilot/GeminiEnterprise data+model trainabilityEnterprise price hikesBroadcom, AMD, Groq - alternative HW optionsData Center buildoutsDoes AI spending shiftWhat is Agentic AI?Long term spending + short term refocusesPREDICTIONS:At least one big AI IPO in 2026, and it won’t go well. (Aaron says Anthropic)People will question whether Sam Altman is the right person to lead OpenAIAI will be a central issue in the 2026 US elections, either about job losses or electricity pricesOne major LPU/TPU/dedicated inference chip will break through in 2026Azure will be the Number One Cloud… (Aaron has to keep it going)We will start to see a shift in the Enterprise from big models in the sky (1+trillion parameters) to dedicated, purpose-built models of 500M or less in size for efficiency and securityGemini will dominate the consumer/prosumer space, OpenAI will go through the trough of disillusionmentThe industry will shift to a base/instruct and a reasoning split of modelsAWS and Azure will double down on being a solutions provider instead of a primitive supplier for AI and infrastructureFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodBlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpodFEEDBACK?Email: show @ the enterprise ai show dot comeBluesky: @TheEntAIShow.bsky.socialTwitter/X: @TheEntAIShowInstagram: @TheEntAIShow