The cloud never stands still, and neither should your strategy. With AI reshaping architectures, vendors redefining their portfolios, and enterprises doubling down on efficiency, the next year promises major shifts. Here are the top cloud predictions to watch as cloud computing enters its next chapter.
Secure Automation and Governance-by-design Will Define Which Cloud Providers Lead
In 2026, watch for major advancements within cloud strategy to incorporate both AI and cybersecurity. As AI becomes embedded in every layer of the technology stack, secure automation and governance-by-design will define which cloud providers lead and which fall behind. How data is used and stored will continue to be a massive balancing act between enabling AI and automation and ensuring data security and compliance.
Colton De Vos, Marketing Specialist, Resolute Technology Solutions
Cloud Will Become The Underlying Fabric of Business
Eventually in 2026, the cloud will no longer be a vendor from whom you buy, but rather the underlying fabric of business – teams will buy results (automation, insight, trust) instead of VMs, thus finance and engineering departments will have to coordinate around measurable value instead of utilisation. This shift elevates model governance and supply-chain transparency to executive-level strategy: businesses that gamify observability, provenance and human-in-the-loop controls will not only be faster but also gain more customer trust.
Cache Merrill, Founder, Zibtek
Cloud Will Evolve to Intelligence-led
By 2026, the cloud will evolve from being infrastructure-led to intelligence-led, where AI-driven automation optimises, secures, and enforces compliance in real time. Hybrid and multi-cloud models will become the default, not the exception, as organisations demand flexibility and resilience without vendor lock-in. The defining advantage won’t be storage or compute power; it will be how effectively businesses harness cloud intelligence to anticipate and respond to change.
Craig Bird, Managing Director, CloudTech24
A More Autonomous Ecosystem
By 2026, cloud computing will evolve into a more autonomous ecosystem, driven by AI-driven optimization and sustainability imperatives. The convergence of AI and cloud will enable real-time workload orchestration, reducing operational costs by up to 40% according to Gartner forecasts. Moreover, the rise of sovereign clouds will redefine data residency and compliance, especially as global regulations tighten, making “localized cloud infrastructure” a competitive necessity rather than a strategic choice.
Anupa Rongala, CEO, Invensis Technologies
The Cloud Will Become Intelligent & Distributed
In 2026, the cloud will become truly intelligent and distributed. We will see a major shift towards hybrid and multi-cloud strategies not as an option, but as the standard for businesses seeking resilience and to avoid vendor lock-in. AI will be embedded in cloud services, automating everything from resource management to security, making operations more efficient and predictive. This means IT teams can focus less on manual configuration and more on innovation.
Jens Hagel, CEO, hagel IT-Services GmbH
SaaS Isn’t Dead – But It’s Fading Into the Background
Cloud Workload Will Adopt Container-native and Serverless-first Patterns
Cloud workloads will adopt more container-native and serverless-first patterns but organizational readiness stands as the primary obstacle instead of technological limitations. Our experience with .NET Core and Azure Functions shows that teams face more challenges with deployment automation and observability than with scaling performance.
The need for cost optimization will surpass the need for fast feature development by 2026. Our enterprise client achieved a 35% reduction in their monthly cloud expenses through Kubernetes workload optimization which involved identifying and shutting down unused resources.
Igor Golovko, Developer, Founder, TwinCore
Memory Becomes the Primary Cloud Cost Determinant
By 2026, memory–not compute or storage–becomes the primary cloud cost driver and bottleneck. We’re already seeing AI models that need 10-20TB of active memory, but hyperscalers are still charging you to provision fixed memory per instance. That economics breaks completely when your model needs more RAM than physically fits in any single server.
The dirty secret: companies are about to realize they’re paying 3-5x more than necessary because cloud architectures force you to overprovision memory on every node “just in case.” We proved this at MemCon ’24 with empirical tests–workloads using pooled software-defined memory cut costs by 50% while actually running faster because resources flow to wherever they’re needed in real-time.
Prediction: hyperscalers will start offering memory-as-a-service separate from compute by 2026, or they’ll lose enterprise AI workloads to companies running their own memory-disaggregated infrastructure on-prem. The current “rent a huge instance to get enough RAM” model is already dying.
John Overton, CEO, Kove
Edge Computing More Common
I’ve managed cloud platforms for a while now, and I can see edge computing becoming common. By 2026, SaaS companies will cut latency by processing data closer to users. We didn’t see a huge change overnight, but as we moved more work to these edge locations, customers actually started saying the app felt faster. My advice? Start a small hybrid experiment early. Even a limited test can reveal simple new ways to improve your service.
Scaling The Cloud
2026 will not be about “if we’ll do AI/cloud/platform” — it will be about “how we have AI/cloud/platform at scale, with trust, governance, ecosystem, and sharper ability to execute for monetization.
Vidya Shankaran, Field CTO, Commvault
Cloud Native-AI, Quantum Experimentation & Sustainability
Here is my take on 3 pivotal shifts: 1. Cloud Native-AI will be the name of the game – very quickly evolving into autonomous agents proactively orchestrating hybrid workflows across edge and core infrastructures. 2. Quantum experimentation will leap from labs to cloud consoles, with hybrid classical-quantum platforms enabling breakthroughs in optimization for many industries, forcing more focus on cyber-security. 3. Sustainability will gain more importance where mandates in this area that could drive cloud migrations toward carbon-neutral architectures, blending edge AI for real-time emissions tracking and balancing it against cost investments.
Shruti Dhumak, Head of Customer Engineering, Google
Governance Will Become Cloud’s Competitive Edge
The winners won’t be those who scale fastest, but those who can prove control without slowing down. Cloud governance will shift from a compliance exercise to a trust-as-a-service capability embedded in every architecture.
Tilman Mürle, Co-Founder, Komplyzen
NeoClouds Will Be Built For Data Aggregation at GPU Speed
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Ultra-fast NVMe layers for immediate training, caching, and intermediate results.
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Massive-scale object storage tiers for datasets, checkpoints, and long-term retention, keeping active corpora available for reuse and ongoing model optimization.
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Deep cold storage for persistent data state and learnings that must be preserved for retraining, lineage, or compliance
Improve Cloud Infrastructure
Windows Server 2025 and On-premises Workloads
Windows Server 2025 is emerging as a facilitator of modernization while accommodating on-premises workloads essential to operational continuity, and I foresee this making a big impact in 2026 with things like Active Directory enhancements, Azure Arc integration, Hotpatching and containers and app modernization.
Cody Searl, Modern Workplace Architect, enVista
A Paradigm Shift
2026 will be remembered as the year cloud software finally caught up to the way business actually works. Multiple priorities. Visible. Active. At the same time.
Michael Till, CEO, ProBuilt Software
Cloud Strategy Defined By Freedom
2026 cloud strategy will be defined by freedom, not footprint. Enterprises are realizing that single-provider dependency has become the biggest threat to agility and negotiating power. The next wave of growth will come from open source–driven, multi-cloud architectures that preserve flexibility while still harnessing hyperscaler scale.
Anil Inamdar, Global Head of Data Services, NetApp Instaclustr
Cloud Competition
The cloud is going to see serious competition from cloud exits to the data center, both because of cost control and data sovereignty. People are realizing that the flexibility of the cloud is now available on-premises, and the risk of not controlling your own destiny (both in terms of cost and outages) is non-trivial.
Steve Francis, CEO, Sidero Labs
AI-first Cloud Infrastructure as the New Normal
By 2026, the cloud won’t be just a service you use; it’ll be a network you belong to. Instead of businesses building systems around hardware or traditional software, they’ll build around AI-driven models.
Businesses won’t rely on giant data centers; instead, their infrastructure will be powered by micro-clouds distributed right where they’re needed most. AI will dynamically generate the infrastructure, optimize workflows, and scale on-demand, making current cloud management tools feel archaic.
Amit Khese, CTO, Infysion
Data Goes to the Model Paradigm is Dead
By 2026, the “data goes to the model” paradigm will be a thing of the past. In this context, zero-copy inference over lakehouse/DWH and ubiquitous policy-as-code will prevail. Confidential computing (TEE) and keys in HSMs will become the default for production LLM, otherwise enterprises will not allow AI into the “money path.”
Roman Rylko, CTO, Pynest
Continued Evolution to an Orchestration Engine
As AI becomes central to enterprise strategy, the cloud will continue its evolution from a storage layer to an orchestration engine. The next generation of architectures will unify APIs, data pipelines and security controls to make intelligence portable across environments.
Drew Ivan, Chief Architect, Rhapsody
A Shift Towards Regional Encryption Keys
As governments tighten data protection laws and enterprises become more privacy-conscious, we’ll see a shift toward region-specific encryption keys, independent key management, and verifiable data localization. The future cloud will not be one giant ecosystem but a federation of privacy-first environments, where transparency and user control outweigh convenience.
At Mailfence, we already see growing demand for hybrid and sovereign cloud models that combine local compliance with global interoperability. Encryption, identity management, and zero-trust validation will become the new benchmarks of reliability, while blind faith in centralized, opaque cloud infrastructures will steadily erode.
Patrick De Schutter, Co-Founder, Managing Director, Mailfence
AI Will Become Fully Integrated
In 2026, AI will become fully integrated into cloud infrastructure. Rather than as the added feature that it is now. This will inevitably cause some problems as the integration is smoothed out, and as we explore the most effective uses for the integrations. But in time, all aspects of cloud design, management, and functions will become more automated and efficient.
Arif Ali, Technical Director, Just After Midnight
Outdated Cloud Apps Will Make Education and Healthcare Vulnerable to Cyberattacks
Education and healthcare will face the highest volume of cyberattacks in 2026. In both education and healthcare, one of the greatest cybersecurity vulnerabilities lies in the challenge of integrating legacy systems with modern digital infrastructure. These sectors often operate on a patchwork of technologies, such as mainframes for patient records or student information systems, SaaS platforms for scheduling or learning management, and custom-built tools for diagnostics or administrative tasks that rarely interoperate. This lack of integration creates security silos, inconsistent authentication and logging, and fragmented backup protocols, all of which increase the attack surface. Compounding the issue, many institutions still rely on outdated tape backups or under-tested cloud appliances, leading to slow recovery times and compliance risks. As these sectors modernize, the inability to securely bridge old and new systems without introducing complexity or gaps in protection will come to a head in 2026, creating a major cybersecurity concern that bad actors will undoubtedly exploit.
Anthony Cusimano, Solutions Director, Object First
The ‘Set it and Forget it’ Era of Single-provider Cloud Computing is Over
Cloud Becomes the Lab’s Silent Collaborator
I am seeing the cloud infrastructure becoming a real-time analytical layer where AI and automation pipelines interact to optimize workflows upon their own accord, not through manual triggering.
By 2026, I believe scientific computing and data storage will blend into intelligent ecosystems interpreting data during generation.
I would imagine laboratories and companies will lean away from static databases and more toward context-aware processing, wherein the system “learns” workflow priorities derived from trends of usage.
Basically, the cloud would work as an assistant that thinks for a change, whereas otherwise it is strictly for storage, quietly nudging diagnosis, pharmaceutical, and life science decisions.
Francesc Felipe Legaz, Application Scientist, Berthold Technologies
Cloud Costs and Arch Complexity Will Continue to Stall Adoption
Whichever way we look at AI, it’s costly. If companies stay in the cloud, it’s expensive to run complex AI projects there. It’s also prohibitively expensive to migrate infrastructure back in-house unless organisations are certain it’s the right strategy (i.e. when it’s cheaper to have on-prem control than to operate in the cloud). The uncertainty around selecting the right technical framework, coupled with heavy potential costs, will slow adoption. What we are sure of is that companies want to push the boundaries of AI and get there quicker than their competitors, and so they will look to iterate quickly, and learn first from their cloud providers, before committing to a long-term strategy.
Tobie Morgan Hitchcock, CEO & Co-Founder, SurrealDB
Regulatory and Audit Pressures Will Intensify
Regulatory and audit pressures will intensify as AI agents begin to act, not just infer. In 2026, operational AI will face the same scrutiny as financial systems, with regulators demanding explainability, traceability, and strict data governance for agentic actions. Reducing vendor concentration risk through cloud-agnostic architectures—capable of operating seamlessly across multi-cloud and hybrid environments—will be critical to maintaining compliance, continuity, and resilience under tightening oversight.
Allen Terleto, VP of partners and alliances at Cockroach Labs
A Need For Balancing Innovation With Empathy
Cloud technology in 2026 will likely redefine how we understand connectivity and mental health care delivery. With advancements in AI-driven platforms and secure, scalable cloud solutions, therapists may rely more heavily on virtual environments to support clients. Imagine therapy sessions happening in immersive, cloud-powered virtual spaces, bridging the gap between in-person interactions and remote care.
Simplicity Will Finally Arrive
Having lived through every cloud era, we see 2026 as the year when true simplicity finally arrives. The winners won’t be those adding layers of complexity, but those stripping them away—turning decades of cloud evolution into experiences people can trust and understand instantly.”
Two decades ago, the cloud was revolutionary; in 2026, it’s expected. The next leap forward isn’t about where data resides, but how intelligently it responds. The companies that succeed will make the cloud feel personal, instant, intuitive, and secure by design.
David Ly, CEO and Founder, Iveda
Security Shifts from Risk Posture to Exposure Prioritization
Security teams are moving beyond static vulnerability lists to focus on dynamic exposure management. Understanding that exploitability against their attack surface, business impact, and real-time context now matter more than raw CVSS scores. Next year, the vendors who win will correlate and prioritize correcting their greatest exposure points across CloudSec, AppSec, AI security, and supply chain findings.
Mark Lambert, the chief product officer, ArmorCode
Cloud Innovation is Rapidly Advancing
Cloud innovation is advancing rapidly, especially in financial institutions where adoption is accelerating. This growth is driven by AI-powered features, secure hybrid architectures, and the ability to migrate gradually while benefiting from cloud-based functionality and infrastructure optimization.
Matt Tengwall, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Verint
Private Clouds Will Grow
My conversations with IT leaders lead me to believe that private clouds will grow in the next year or so. That said, the definition of “private cloud” is not clear and varies by audience. For some private cloud means a well-defined set of capabilities wholly hosted on a hyperscaler’s infrastructure. For others it means “cloud like” capabilities hosted in a private or colo-hosted data center. And yet, for others, it means a hybrid approach across multiple public and private locations including the neo-clouds. Whatever the definition is – the point is that most companies mean it to be a largely bespoke implementation that meets their organization’s needs. That will, for sure, continue if not grow.
Juan Orlandini, Chief Technology Officer, North America and Distinguished Technologist, Insight Enterprises
Treat Resilience As A First-class Requirement
In 2026 companies will need to treat resilience as a first-class requirement. They will build systems that can adapt in real time, shift workloads seamlessly, and maintain continuity no matter which provider is experiencing an outage. The pattern of cloud failures will no longer be theoretical — it’s here. The future demands resilience by design.
Harshit Omar, CTO and Co-Founder of FluidCloud
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