Trends to Watch in 2026: The Shifts Leaders Can’t Ignore 

One of the biggest shifts coming in 2026 is the emergence of large, credible case studies showing how modern pricing teams outperform legacy approaches. Spreadsheets and manual workflows have long limited how fast and accurately teams could manage complex price books. That gap is now becoming impossible to ignore. 

New capabilities like natural language interfaces combined with machine learning are changing how pricing work gets done. Instead of navigating rigid systems or disconnected tools, teams can orchestrate pricing workflows more intuitively. This makes it dramatically easier to manage thousands or millions of prices at scale. 

The result is better prices, faster cycles, and fewer errors, plus pricing teams that spend less time maintaining data and more time making strategic decisions. Efficiency gains will be measurable, visible, and hard to argue with in 2026. 

Everyone is “using AI” this year, but that doesn’t mean everyone is using it well. 

The real divide will be between organizations that understand where AI creates value and those that deploy it without clear purpose. AI is powerful, but it becomes expensive noise that consumes budget without the right skills, governance, and objectives. 

Winning teams will treat AI as a precision tool rather than a blanket solution. They’ll focus on well-defined use cases tied directly to pricing performance, sales execution, or operational efficiency. Clear ownership, strong data foundations, and realistic expectations will matter more than ever. 

In other words, success won’t come from adopting AI first. It will come from adopting it deliberately. 

If 2025 was about making AI accessible, 2026 will be about justifying the investment. 

AI tools have moved from novelty to necessity, and executive scrutiny is increasing. Leaders will expect AI initiatives to show clear KPIs, business impact, and financial returns. Projects without a strong link to outcomes will be paused, reshaped, or cut. 

This pressure will drive a shift toward more targeted AI solutions. Broad, generic capabilities will give way to focused applications designed to solve specific commercial problems like price optimization, deal guidance, or rebate accuracy. 

This is an opportunity for pricing and commercial teams. AI becomes far easier to defend and far more valuable to the business when it is aligned to revenue, margin, and productivity goals. 

Despite hopes for stabilization, inflation isn’t going away in 2026. It may not dominate headlines the way it once did, but it remains structurally higher than historical targets. And that gap compounds over time. 

Even a one-point difference adds up, translating into significant cumulative price pressure, higher costs, and tighter margins over several years. The surprise for many organizations is that inflation is still a problem they need to actively manage in 2026. 

Pricing discipline will remain critical. Companies will need the confidence and capability to execute price increases strategically, not reactively. Defending margins will be an ongoing requirement for profitability. 

Those with strong pricing processes, data transparency, and governance will be better positioned to respond without damaging customer relationships. 

IAI may be everywhere, but it’s also getting more expensive. 

The infrastructure required to run advanced models continues to drive up costs. The price of accessing sophisticated AI models through tokens or credits is rising as well. 

The result is an “AI credit crunch.” Businesses will need to make tougher choices this year about where AI is worth the spend. General-purpose experimentation will slow. Purpose-built applications tied to clear business value will accelerate. 

This reinforces an important lesson for pricing teams: AI delivers the most value when it’s embedded in critical workflows. The investment is easier to justify and sustain when it directly improves pricing accuracy, speed, or decision quality.