VILNIUS, Lithuania, Jan. 7, 2026 – Oxylabs, a leader in web intelligence solutions, released its sixth annual AI predictions report, identifying major trends, risks, and developments to watch for in 2026. For the first time, the report includes a retrospective of previous years’ predictions, tracking how early signs highlighted by experts evolved into AI market priorities.
The annual report features insights from Oxylabs leaders, including CEO Julius Černiauskas, and members of Oxylabs’ AI/ML Advisory Board, Adi Andrei, Director at Technosophics and former Senior Data Scientist at NASA, along with Ali Chaudhry, Founder at Veracious. The experts expect no sudden shifts to rock the market in 2026. Instead, they point to AI’s broadening adoption and emerging policy strategies as sources of lasting impact.
AI agents at the dawn of the Internet’s new era
Previous Oxylabs reports charted the rise of AI agents and the course of the web intelligence industry. Today, experts see the effect of these agents on our interactions with web data as illustrative of how AI can transform business operations and everyday life in 2026.
In business, improving AI capabilities means cost savings and increased access to high-quality intelligence, even for smaller companies with fewer resources. “Multi-agent systems will take over fragmented web data workflows, automating tasks that previously demanded entire engineering teams,” explains Juras Juršėnas, COO at Oxylabs.
Meanwhile, consumers will feel the effect of the AI agent revolution through AI-native browsers. “These aren’t just browsers with AI features bolted on – they’re fundamentally reimagined interfaces where the browser acts as an autonomous agent that completes tasks, manages workflows, and serves as a personal research assistant,” notes Rytis Ulys, Head of Data & AI at Oxylabs.
Crucial decisions for responsible AI
The growing pervasiveness of AI agents also underscores the need for critical policy choices to implement safeguards in AI development. Adi Andrei, Oxylabs AI/ML Board Member, warns of the risks: “AI will increasingly be used to justify new systems of control: from programmable money to algorithmic governance. The danger isn’t superintelligence, but the normalisation of opaque, automated decision-making embedded into everyday life. This shift will redefine power structures long before true AGI arrives.”
Of the major jurisdictions, Europe seems to be taking the most aggressive approach to counter these threats. Its regulatory strategy, however, might backfire. “Europe risks backing itself into a corner on AI,” observes Denas Grybauskas, Chief Governance and Strategy Officer at Oxylabs. “If access to public data becomes too restricted, we’ll either see biased models trained on insufficient datasets — or companies quietly bypassing regulation altogether. The next year will be decisive in defining whether regulation enables trust or stifles innovation.”
AI with in-built accountability and transparency features might offer a possible middle ground to address the risks without inadvertently creating new ones. According to Ali Chaudhry, Oxylabs AI/ML Board Member, this is already a boardroom priority for 2026: “AI agents will execute chains of tasks with governance, auditability, and accountability built in. Safety and alignment will become operational disciplines, not abstract research goals.”
Julius Černiauskas, CEO of Oxylabs, sees such responsible management of AI integration as the market’s driving force in 2026: “The real shift won’t be in model breakthroughs, but in how deeply AI is embedded into everyday business operations and how the integrations are handled. The bubble won’t burst — instead, we’ll see sustained investment driven by incremental but reliable gains.”
The full report, including detailed analysis and additional predictions, is available at the Oxylabs Official Website.
About Oxylabs
Established in 2015, Oxylabs is a web intelligence acquisition solution and premium proxy provider that enables companies of all sizes to harness the power of big data. Constant innovation, an extensive patent portfolio, and a focus on ethics have enabled Oxylabs to become a global leader in web intelligence collection and forge close ties with dozens of Fortune Global 500 companies. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, Oxylabs was named Europe’s fastest-growing web intelligence acquisition company in the Financial Times’ FT 1000 list. For more information, please visit: https://oxylabs.io/
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