Getting Down to the Brass Tacks of Artificial Intelligence
AI isn’t slowing down. If anything, 2026 is becoming the year artificial intelligence moves from being something we talk to into something we give work to do.
That distinction matters.
For the last few years, most people experienced AI through chatbots: ask a question, write an email, summarize a document, create an image or help with some code.
Now we’re entering the AI agent era.
AI Is Moving From Assistant to Worker
Businesses are increasingly experimenting with AI agents capable of completing multi-step assignments instead of simply answering prompts.
Recent OpenAI enterprise data shows this movement spreading well beyond software development into areas including sales, recruiting, marketing and legal work.
McKinsey’s 2026 AI survey tells a similar story. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents report regular AI use in at least one business function, while 44% say AI is being scaled across their enterprise. Among companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, 40% report scaling AI agents.
That’s a major change.
The question businesses are beginning to ask isn’t:
“Can AI help our employees?”
It’s becoming:
“What parts of this job can AI actually complete?”
The AI Race Is Getting Faster
Competition among the major AI developers continues to push capabilities forward.
Anthropic announced new Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 models on September 1, targeting coding and knowledge work, while Meta is continuing development toward more capable personal AI agents.
The race isn’t simply about building the smartest chatbot anymore.
Companies are competing over AI agents, coding, research, enterprise automation, multimodal AI and eventually systems capable of interacting more extensively with the physical world.
And that requires enormous infrastructure.
Dell recently raised its annual forecasts as demand for AI servers surged, while HPE increased its forecasts as demand for AI servers and networking equipment continued growing.
In other words, the AI boom isn’t only a software story.
It’s also a gigantic chips, servers, networking, electricity and data-center story.
Businesses Still Have an AI Problem: ROI
Here’s where the hype meets reality.
People are clearly becoming more productive with AI. McKinsey reports that 80% of respondents say AI has improved their individual productivity.
But only 37% report at least some organization-level EBIT impact from AI—and that percentage is roughly unchanged from last year.
That’s the big challenge heading into 2027.
Businesses have bought AI.
Employees are using AI.
Now management wants to know:
Where’s the money?
The companies that figure out how to redesign actual workflows around AI—not simply add another chatbot subscription—could have a substantial advantage.
AI Jobs Aren’t Going Away—They’re Changing
AI will eliminate some tasks. It will automate portions of others. And yes, some jobs will disappear.
But that isn’t the entire employment story.
Companies still need people who understand the business, customers and problems AI is supposed to solve.
That creates opportunities for professionals who combine their existing expertise with AI skills:
Business analysts + AI
Software testers + AI
Marketing professionals + AI
Developers + AI
Data analysts + AI
Project managers + AI
Cybersecurity professionals + AI
Learning AI doesn’t necessarily mean becoming an AI engineer.
For millions of workers, the valuable skill may simply be becoming exceptionally good at using AI within the profession they already know.
What Comes Next?
Expect the next several months to revolve around one word:
Agents.
AI systems will increasingly research, analyze, code, organize information and execute workflows with less step-by-step instruction.
But businesses are also discovering the downside.
Deloitte reports that only about one in five companies has a mature governance model for autonomous AI agents.
Security, accuracy, privacy, cost and human oversight aren’t side issues anymore. They’re becoming central parts of deploying AI responsibly.
Governments are wrestling with the same questions. The United States is currently pushing G20 countries toward a lighter regulatory approach to AI, demonstrating just how unsettled global AI policy remains.
The TacksAI Bottom Line
Forget the science-fiction predictions for a minute.
The important AI story of 2026 is much simpler:
AI is becoming useful enough to actually do work.
The winners won’t necessarily be the people who know every new AI model released.
They’ll be the people and businesses that figure out where AI saves time, where it makes money, where humans still outperform it—and where the combination of the two works better than either alone.
That’s where we’re getting down to the brass tacks.
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