Executive Summary: Communications and collaboration technologies will continue to evolve in 2026, primarily in the form of new AI-based features in unified communications as a service, or UCaaS, platforms. The way we work is changing. AI is poised to play a larger role, not just for individual workers, but for how we work in teams. With the hybrid work model creating a decentralized workforce, the right tools are needed for effective collaboration.
Five key trends are shaping this new landscape, and IT leaders, including CIOs, CTOs, and IT directors, must recognize their importance. Aside from considering investment priorities for new technologies, IT leaders need to understand why each trend is important for workplace productivity and how it will affect the way people work in 2026. Taken together, the analysis across these trends also provides IT leaders with a strategic overview of how these technologies will affect the business overall.
1. AI copilots expand across all workflows
Copilots have been part of the collaboration landscape for some time, even prior to AI, so the concept is already familiar to workers. Initially, copilots served to help workers get more from their collaboration tools and be virtual assistants, so workers would not have to open another window to look elsewhere for help.
AI has elevated copilots in two important ways, and this has implications for IT leaders. First is the shift of copilots from standalone applications to being fully embedded in UCaaS platforms. Secondly, AI-powered copilots can play a larger role in how work gets done, going well beyond virtual assistance in using platform features. Copilots can now retrieve information needed for tasks, make recommendations about doing the work and even do the work itself.
As this evolution continues, copilots will become more like digital twins to drive personal productivity -- and not just one, but multiple copilots and AI agents.
Adding generative AI and agentic AI elements enables copilots to take on more tasks, like attending meetings on behalf of a worker. As this evolution continues, copilots will become more like digital twins to drive personal productivity -- and not just one, but multiple copilots and AI agents. IT leaders must note, however, that copilots have wide visibility into a worker's activities, such as their contacts, emails, files, meetings they attend and what they are sharing.
Expect the role of copilots to expand in 2026 across the organization as well as across workflows. For IT leaders, there will be greater demands on data security and personal privacy. In the wrong hands, copilots can compromise privacy and access data for malevolent purposes.
Good governance will also be needed to ensure copilots are not used for surveillance and that employees don't present AI-generated work as their own. Finally, oversight is needed so the use of copilots does not spiral unchecked as adoption grows.
2. Meetings become more outcome-oriented
Some forms of work require little to no human interaction. But for collaboration, meetings are the primary mode for getting things done. The meeting experience has evolved considerably and is now a core feature of all UCaaS platforms. A key reason for this is to support today's hybrid work model. Team members are rarely in the same space for meetings and need a consistent set of tools, regardless of their location. That model has become the new normal, and with that, UCaaS will remain the default platform for meetings.
While UCaaS makes it easy to have meetings, it does not ensure productive meetings on its own. Many workers feel there are too many meetings, which cuts into their personal productivity and takes them away from other tasks. Enterprises are well aware of this concern, which falls under the broader umbrella of employee experience. Employers must consider many factors to not just support hybrid work, but also help employees strike a manageable work-life balance.
All of these point to my prediction that meetings will become more outcome-oriented in 2026. On one hand, UCaaS platforms continue to add features for a better meeting experience. This form of innovation certainly has value, but workers would rather have fewer, not more meetings.
What IT leaders need from vendors are more metrics and analytics that reflect meeting outcomes and their effect on the business. These will have more business value than new features focused on camera angles or room temperature. AI has a role to play for better meeting outcomes, such as summarizing what happened, identifying each person's contribution and managing action items to ensure post-meeting tasks are done.
3. UCaaS serves as a centralized hub for work
UCaaS platforms are much more than meetings. Their core value proposition is to provide a single platform for all forms of communication and collaboration. We may take this for granted now, but initially, this was a big step forward from a time when business communication was fragmented with standalone applications and limited capabilities for remote workers not tied to the LAN.
Now, the unified in UCaaS addresses this by providing workers with a consistent UX and set of tools from any location. The continuity of workflow improves by having all communication modes on the same platform, especially when using multiple channels during a single collaboration session. Coupled with the rise of copilots, these platforms can encompass a wider range of work activities and orchestration with other platforms and back-office systems.
The continuity of workflow improves by having all communication modes on the same platform, especially when using multiple channels during a single collaboration session.
The shift here is how UCaaS is becoming the hub of all activity. This is very much the intent of UCaaS vendors, as many core features are getting harder to monetize. To keep this market growing, vendors will focus on embedding their platforms deeper into workflows and supporting new applications that can be monetized.
This will be important for IT leaders to monitor, as there is a risk that UCaaS may become too central to everything. While workers may embrace having fewer platforms to worry about, IT leaders need to be mindful of giving vendors too much leverage by dictating pricing, service levels and lock-in. IT leaders must strategically assess this risk and not blindly adopt every new vendor capability.
4. Compliance requirements become more onerous
Digital communications create more interaction touchpoints, as well as more information to manage. For everyday communication, this isn't so problematic. But in regulated sectors, such as financial services, healthcare and government, this poses a growing challenge for compliance.
Compliance is a broad term, but there are real risks and consequences when regulatory requirements are not met. First is the risk around privacy protection, whether it be patient health records, an investor's financial data or a citizen's identity documentation.
Aside from personal privacy concerns, trust in those institutions becomes compromised when they are not compliant, and from there, financial penalties and licensing suspensions often follow. Finally, if that data falls into the wrong hands, there is financial risk -- and often reputational risk -- for the person whose privacy was violated.
IT leaders are well aware of these risks, along with the underlying threats. Every type of business has compliance requirements, to varying degrees. Fraud is much easier to perpetrate in the digital world, and as the march to digital transformation continues, compliance will become more complex and challenging in 2026.
In response to this, IT leaders need to strengthen their cybersecurity posture, and more specifically, to understand how AI can be part of the solution. The key here is AI's ability to track all communications and workflows in real time. With UCaaS becoming the hub for this in the workplace, IT leaders need UCaaS vendors to show them how these tools help the business remain compliant. When the right tools are in place, workers can be flagged and coached by AI when they are or about to be non-compliant, making this an important risk-mitigation strategy for IT.
5. Employee experience becomes core to workplace productivity
Workplace productivity is based on human interaction, whether working on individual tasks or collaborating in teams. Technology helps make those interactions more effective, especially UCaaS as the hub for communications and workflows. These tools, however, are just one factor for productivity, along with the quality of work outputs.
Improving productivity has long been the primary rationale for investing in UCaaS, but reliable metrics around this have yet to emerge. Productivity is highly subjective -- at least for knowledge workers -- making it difficult for both businesses and vendors to attach ROI to UCaaS.
Two shifts are occurring in this context that IT leaders need to note in 2026. First is the effect of AI on UCaaS, where many new features can track activity that can be attributed to productivity, such as engagement during a meeting and the adoption of generative AI tools to automate tasks like composing emails and calendar management.
IT leaders will need to view UCaaS as just one element of EX, and not the sole driver of workplace productivity.
Secondly, the difficulty of measuring productivity creates a growing emphasis on employee experience (EX), where collaboration is just one aspect of work. EX is a more holistic approach that also considers factors, such as culture, workplace environment, wellness, recognition and training for advancement. These factors are especially important for return-to-office (RTO) initiatives as businesses strive to make the hybrid work model work for everyone.
The RTO trend will continue into 2026, and with that, EX will become increasingly important. IT leaders will need to view UCaaS as just one element of EX, and not the sole driver of workplace productivity. For UCaaS, it's important to note that new AI capabilities will provide IT leaders with useful insights on the adoption and usage of features that affect productivity.
Some AI features with UCaaS will be more applicable to EX, such as prompts to take a break from screen time or sentiment analysis that detects fatigue or stress when completing a task. Aside from evaluating the value of UCaaS in this broader context, IT leaders must also be mindful that these same AI tools can be used for worker surveillance. This could be detrimental to EX if not managed transparently.
IT leader action checklist
These predictions provide an industry-based foundation for guiding technology priorities and strategies to drive better collaboration outcomes in 2026. To that end, here are three checklist items for IT leaders to follow in shaping their strategies.
Stay on top of new AI capabilities. UCaaS platforms will be more AI-driven in 2026. Many will focus on automating tasks and workflows, but others will be more oriented to improving and measuring productivity. However, AI can be invasive in ways that need to be properly addressed, so this will have implications for managing identity, ensuring privacy and governance around data security, deepfakes and plagiarism.
Carefully consider the role of UCaaS in the overall technology framework. AI will greatly expand the reach of UCaaS in the workplace, which could crowd out other tools or platforms. Not only can UCaaS touch every facet of everyday workflows, but many businesses are opting to use a common platform for communications and contact center. While there are practical benefits for workers to have a centralized hub for work, IT leaders must also consider the implications of relying too much on a single vendor for such mission-critical capabilities.
View worker productivity as part of employee experience. In today's world of hybrid work, employers must balance a complex mix of priorities. Success is more than just using the right technologies, and this means that productivity can no longer be viewed in isolation. UCaaS cannot be viewed as the sole means to that end. UCaaS remains an enabler of productivity and collaboration, but IT leaders also need to push vendors to add more capabilities that support the broader range of employee experience needs.
Jon Arnold is principal of J Arnold & Associates, an independent analyst providing thought leadership and go-to-market counsel with a focus on the business-level effect of communications technology on digital transformation.
