What will 2026 bring for business?

From Warwick Business School’s London base on the 17th floor of The Shard, the capital unfolds as a study in perpetual motion. Across the river, the glass towers of the City signal London’s enduring role as a global financial hub; to the north, the energy of Spitalfields and Shoreditch reflects a thriving ecosystem of digital innovation and entrepreneurial ambition. Eastwards, the railway lines stretching out from London Bridge hint at futures still taking shape.  

It is a striking view that mirrors, and contributes to, the conversations unfolding within Warwick Business School (WBS) itself. Both WBS in London and our Warwick campus are hubs where students, academics, alumni and business partners come together to exchange ideas, challenge orthodoxies and interrogate the forces shaping modern business.

Both WBS London and our Warwick campus provide forums for navigating the next wave of business disruption – from climate equity and digital transformation to the shifting leadership demands and strategic challenges brought on by geopolitical uncertainty.  

So what might 2026 bring? From our perch above the capital city and at our Warwick campus, we asked our academics to look ahead.

Leaders will need to embrace systems thinking

2026 will be the year when business leaders need to be more agile and system-minded than ever, writes Dimitrios Spyridonidis, Professor of Leadership and Innovation and Executive Director of London MBA programmes.

Rather than facing disruptions sequentially, leaders in 2026 will operate in an environment where geopolitical instability, supply-chain shocks, rapid advances in AI, and tightening sustainability regulations collide and amplify one another.

The speed, complexity, and interdependence of these shifts will render traditional, linear planning insufficient. Leaders will need to move from mechanical forecasting and annual planning cycles to adaptive strategy – experimenting, iterating, and reallocating resources dynamically across their organisations and ecosystems.

What will differentiate successful leaders in 2026 too is not authority but influence. Guiding cross-functional teams, navigating distributed decision-making, and mobilising partners across entire systems will require leaders who can bring others with them – not through hierarchy, but through clarity, trust, and relational intelligence. Systems-level leadership becomes essential: seeing patterns, aligning diverse stakeholders, and shaping conditions rather than issuing instructions.

In other words, the challenges of 2026 – from AI regulation to supply-chain fragility and sustainability demands – will require leaders to think beyond their organisation. Those who can navigate whole ecosystems of partners, regulators, communities and technologies will set the pace.

At the same time, leaders must embrace a paradox mindset, especially around AI. They will need to harness advanced technologies to accelerate insight and efficiency while simultaneously doubling down on the deeply human capabilities that technology cannot replicate: empathy, ethical judgement and the ability to create belonging.

The most effective leaders will treat AI not as a replacement for human leadership but as a catalyst for more humanised leadership – enabling better conversations, deeper learning, and more thoughtful decisions.

Such a context raises the bar for psychological safety, honest communication, and emotional intelligence. As uncertainty grows, employees and stakeholders will look for leaders who can speak candidly about risks and trade-offs without eroding confidence.

Agility in 2026 will not simply mean ‘moving fast’ – it will mean learning fast: empowering teams, shortening decision cycles, and fostering cultures where dissent, experimentation, and responsible risk-taking are encouraged.

Will AI automate financial services?

2026 will be the year when AI agents completely automate some routine tasks in financial services, writes Moris Strub, Associate Professor of Information Systems.

I predict that the use of AI in finance will evolve from being primarily a sophisticated tool to that of an autonomous agent.

We are transitioning from AI systems that assist with tasks to those that orchestrate and execute them end-to-end with little or no human oversight.

For instance, in wealth management, AI agents will be able to detail and execute individualised investment and saving plans. Similarly, in online and retail banking, AI agents will streamline the processing of loan applications, including the determination of fair personalised interest rates that accurately reflect risks inherent to loans. Other examples include tasks such as fraud detection, regulatory compliance monitoring and reporting, as well as onboarding.

Routine tasks in financial services will increasingly be done by AI agents. Advancements in natural language processing, reinforcement learning, and secure data infrastructure will enable these systems to operate with unprecedented accuracy and reliability.

In 2026, the question will no longer be whether AI can automate routine financial tasks, but, rather, how quickly financial institutions can integrate AI agents to obtain new levels of efficiency and competitive advantage.

A new generation of e-entrepreneurs

2026 will be the year when immigrant entrepreneurs anchor local economies while scaling globally through digital platforms, writes Natasha Mwila, Associate Professor of Organisation and Work.

Immigrant founders have long punched above their weight in high-growth start-ups and their influence in driving innovation and strengthening local economic ecosystems is only set to deepen.  

Take the UK, for instance. Immigrants make up under 15 per cent of the UK population, yet 39 per cent of Britain’s 100 fastest-growing companies have at least one foreign-born founder.

Meanwhile, 20 per cent of the world’s tech founders are immigrants, despite immigrants making up only about four per cent of the global population.

Digital platforms are accelerating this trend. By dismantling geographic and regulatory barriers, they are enabling these founders to access global markets and scale rapidly. A new generation of transnational e-entrepreneurs is emerging: founders who weave together networks in both their host and home countries, using digital tools to run seamless cross-border operations.

Their diverse social and professional networks provide unique access to resources and markets, enhancing their ability to scale internationally from day one.

Policy choices will also matter enormously in 2026. My forecast assumes a measure of optimism: that governments will continue to adopt immigration frameworks that favour talent mobility and business creation.

Countries with start-up visa programmes report higher immigrant entrepreneurship rates, while restrictive policies correlate with lower start-up formation.

When combined with robust digital ecosystems, immigration-friendly frameworks foster hybrid entrepreneurial models that enhance resilience and innovation.

In the year ahead, global talent flows and supportive immigration policies will remain central to the effort by advanced economies to sustain their innovation clusters. Far from being peripheral actors, immigrant founders will increasingly shape the entrepreneurial ecosystems that underpin local prosperity.

The increasing costs of climate change

2026 will be the year when more companies revise their business models as they recognise that nature provides critical infrastructure important for security, stability and prosperity, writes Frederik Dahlmann, Associate Professor of Strategy and Sustainability. 

With seven out of nine planetary boundaries defining Earth’s safe operating space for humanity crossed, it’s crunch time for sustainability as our global economy is wholly dependent on a functioning natural ecosystem.

The world remains wildly off-track when it comes to addressing major environmental challenges. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, plastics pollution, flooding, water shortages and heatwaves present systemic risks that only keep growing in frequency and impact.

These will raise companies’ insurance and raw material costs, and affect supply chain logistics and business operations.

Impacts on employees and customers will start to become financially material. Assumptions about business models will need to be revised as ecological and economic forces collide. The relative environmental stability of the past will begin to disappear from the rear-view mirror.

In 2026, it will be the companies that combine effective mitigation, adaptation and regeneration efforts through wide-ranging stakeholder collaborations which find themselves best placed to adapt their business strategies.

Resilience will emerge from decisions and practices that acknowledge and manage companies’ embeddedness within local communities and ecosystems.

Dimitrios Spyridonidis is Professor of Leadership and Innovation and Executive Director of London MBA programmes. He teaches leadership and strategic leadership development modules on the Executive MBA (London), Global Online MBA (London) and the Accelerator MBA (London). 

Moris Strub is Associate Professor of Information Systems. He is the inaugural Course Director for the MSc Financial Technology and a lead academic at the Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology.

Natasha Mwila is Associate Professor of Organisation and Work and teaches Business in Practice on the MSc programmes.  

Frederik Dahlmann is Associate Professor of Strategy and Sustainability and teaches Creating Sustainable Organisations on the Executive MBA, Executive MBA (London), Global Online MBA and Global Online MBA (London) programmes. 

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