5 UC and collaboration trends reshaping the market in 2026

1. Agentic AI goes mainstream

The age of agentic AI is near, according to Metrigy's "AI for Business Success: 2025-26" global study of 1,104 organizations. Metrigy defines agentic AI as "artificial intelligence systems that can autonomously reason, plan and adapt to changing environments. These systems are designed to operate with a high degree of independence and continuously refine their actions based on context."

While actual rollout of agentic AI is in its infancy, the awareness of it and the benefits it can deliver has hit critical mass. More than half of study participants were familiar with the term, and more than 35% of participants said agentic AI offers the most potential value to their organization compared to other AI use cases.

Early adopters see a variety of potential roles for agentic AI, including managing IT operations, providing customer service, supporting sales teams and automating functions related to marketing, HR and back-office administration. AI agents, created through workflow studios, are likely to sit side-by-side with human employees and will manage their own tasks with varying degrees of autonomy.

2. UCC evolves into the connected workspace

UCC vendors are rapidly transforming their apps into a connected workspace that combines messaging, content creation, task and project management, and more into a single, unified workspace. Examples of connected workspace services include Microsoft Loop, Zoho One and Zoom Workplace. Emerging vendors in this space include Asana, Notion, Smartsheet and Superhuman.

In all cases, these vendors seek to reduce friction and task switching by integrating functions to enable more seamless work. These vendors are also integrating AI virtual assistants to manage and automate workflows.

3. Security and compliance at the forefront

The number of organizations reporting attacks on their workplace collaboration platforms has increased by more than 300% since 2021, according to Metrigy's "Workplace Collaboration and Contact Center Security and Compliance: 2026" global study of 307 organizations.

Security and compliance have moved to the top of IT and business leader concerns as AI increases potential vulnerabilities and makes it easier for attackers to do their dirty work. AI-driven deepfake and social engineering attacks create new risks for customer and employee impersonation attacks. At the same time, companies must protect their AI resources from data exfiltration and prompt injection attacks that are designed to steal data or force AI models to provide false information.

4. The workplace continues to evolve

Organizations are continuing to focus on making their offices a magnet for their employees by creating spaces that provide superior collaboration capabilities for in-person work. Expect to see continued advances, such as the following:

• Broader rollouts of touch-screen devices in rooms and meeting spaces to foster interactive collaboration.
• Deployments of intelligent microphones to better capture in-room participants.
• Devices like center-of-table cameras to capture participants regardless of where they sit.

Additional advances that will accelerate in 2026 include the use of AI to improve meeting participant visibility, audio quality and meeting room device management. Expect to see growing adoption of workspace management and reservation platforms to streamline desk reservations, provide usage analytics and support features like digital signage and easily accessible workspaces for teams.

5. Employee experience boosts communications

Employee experience platforms, such as those from Appspace, LumApps, Microsoft and Zoom, bridge the gap between team-focused collaboration apps and employee communications platforms. These tools bring a Facebook-like capability to the enterprise, enabling employees to uncover and share knowledge based on role, such as sales and marketing, and to facilitate communications.

Coupled with digital signage and mobile devices, these platforms enable companies to strengthen communication, employee education and culture while also fostering employee engagement and social well-being.

Editor's note: This article was updated to reflect new trends and technology in the unified communications and collaboration market.

Irwin Lazar is president and principal analyst at Metrigy, where he leads coverage on the digital workplace. His research focus includes unified communications, VoIP, video conferencing and team collaboration.