AI in 2026: Predicting the Next Trends That Will Change The World

Ejaaz: Welcome to our all-knowing predictions episode. As two hosts of an AI and Frontier Ejaaz: Technology podcast, it seems fitting to end the year with an episode all about Ejaaz: where we think the world is going. Ejaaz: We just did an episode that was kind of recapping the biggest winners and losers Ejaaz: of 2025. If you haven't seen that, I would highly recommend. Ejaaz: But this episode is looking forward into the future.

Ejaaz: This is where the puck is headed to. This is where we're going to try to predict Ejaaz: the most impossibly fast trend that is going up into the right in the world of AI. Ejaaz: So everyone, without further ado welcome to the limitless 2026 prediction show Ejaaz: this is where we're going to talk about all the things starting with a topic Ejaaz: that i think everyone's kind of most excited about hang on Josh: What do you got check fit.

Ejaaz: Oh okay josh and i went Josh: Above and beyond i've got my fleece fully zipped up and i've got my tinfoil Josh: hat for all my conspiracy theories that you're about to hear i apologize in Josh: advance and josh josh has gone with his favorite apple ceo the tim tim cook Josh: Steve Jobs look. He's got the turtleneck on. He's got the glasses. Josh: You're looking, might I say, Josh, you're looking mighty predicting-able.

Ejaaz: I feel very sophisticated today. Although I will say these glasses are like Ejaaz: a minor prescription and they're hurting my eyes. So we're going to try to get Ejaaz: this episode done quick so I can take them off. Josh: Okay. Question one. Ejaaz: So what we're going to do for those who are watching, we have gold stars we're Ejaaz: going to hand out. This is the Limitless Gold Star. If you are a receiver of Ejaaz: the Gold Star, congratulations. We are bullish on you in 2026.

Ejaaz: The first question, the first prediction we're going to reveal EGS is what I Ejaaz: think everyone is kind of most curious about is the AGI question. Ejaaz: AGI, here's our alarm bell. Are we ringing the bell or are we not ringing the Ejaaz: bell by the end of 2026? Will there be AGI or will there not be? Josh: Okay. My answer is yes, but it comes with a clause, which is specifically for Josh: science. I think we're going to make a major breakthrough.

Josh: By major breakthrough, I mean, we discover a cure for a major disease by the Josh: end of the year. And I'm saying this for two reasons. Josh: One, science progress in AI has been frigging amazing. Josh: And two, according to Sam Altman's timeline for OpenAI AGI, he's predicting Josh: we get a science AGI by the end of 2026. So that's my prediction. Ejaaz: Okay. And how would you define AGI in that case?

Josh: Something that shocks me by the end of the year, Josh, that I'm like, Josh: oh my God, we could never have thought of a dread this up by the end of last year. Josh: I think if you create a drug that literally saves millions of lives, that's AGI. Quote me.

Ejaaz: Okay. Okay. I think my prediction for this is going to be no. I Ejaaz: don't think we get to agi and for me the the loose definition of Ejaaz: agi is is like an intelligence that's more capable than us Ejaaz: uh pretty vastly more capable than us in anything that we can do and a big part Ejaaz: of that is the physical embodiment of ai like it it shouldn't be limited to Ejaaz: just bits it should be also extend out to atoms in the world of robotics and

Ejaaz: i don't think robotic understanding is going to be good enough by the end of Ejaaz: the year to feel like it is a truly Ejaaz: it's super artificial general intelligence um so that's why i'm gonna say no Ejaaz: on agi for next year we're not ringing the bell or ringing the bell in some Ejaaz: categories who knows we will i guess moving on to the next question here okay Josh: Houston we have a gpu um over under josh do we have a 25 gpu cluster,

Josh: in space by the end of 2026? AI data centers in space. Do we have... Ejaaz: I was the biggest hater in the world about two months ago. I am taking the over. Ejaaz: I think we're going to have more than 25 GPUs in space by the end of next year. Why? Ejaaz: Because Starship is going to work and we are going to hopefully go to a launch Ejaaz: and watch that thing work. Ejaaz: If Starship works, there is no world in which they don't just ship up...

Ejaaz: Like SpaceX themselves ships up a cluster just to prove a proof of concept. Ejaaz: We right now, if I'm not mistaken, have a single GPU cluster in space, which is training. Ejaaz: So that would imply a 25 fold increase. I think it's happening. Ejaaz: EJS, where do you stand on this?

Josh: I'm also going to take the over on this, but it's not going to be a super bullish Josh: take because regardless of us having over 25 GPUs in space, I don't think it's Josh: going to be better than the clusters that we're going to have on Earth in 2026, Josh: but it's going to be a good initial proof of concept. Josh: You're right. Star Cloud has already this year launched one GPU up there.

Josh: It seems pretty feasible with Josh: all the SpaceX launches that we're going to get more than that in 2026. Ejaaz: Yeah it feels totally contingent on the Starship launch so we're going to be Ejaaz: watching Starship and monitoring that and Josh: We're going to be buying SpaceX shares when it IPOs just to.

Ejaaz: Be clear next year for the IPO too oh we should do biggest IPO of Ejaaz: 2020 all right wait we didn't add this but you just I'm going to break this Ejaaz: up right now okay okay let's go biggest IPO of 2026 what's it going to be because Ejaaz: wait before you answer we have some rumors of IPOs so we have SpaceX 1.5 trillion Ejaaz: we have open AI which is roughly 800 million dollars We have possibly Anthropik going live next year.

Ejaaz: So like there's a lot in the pipeline. Who's the biggest winner? Josh: Okay, it's not going to be what you expect. I'm going for OpenAI. Josh: I think OpenAI is going to have the biggest market cap by the end, Josh: purely because more people understand the AI play. I'm not saying this makes sense. Josh: I'm saying more people believe and understand the AI play.

Josh: And so that like retail people will buy it as well as long-term investors versus Josh: space people are still going to be like, and there's a lot of Elon haters out Josh: there. I'm not one of them, but like, I feel like that might play against them. Ejaaz: Okay. Well, I'm going biggest IPO of SpaceX for sure. We just published an episode Ejaaz: last week about why $1.5 trillion is undervalued.

Ejaaz: So I expect SpaceX to hopefully eclipse the $2 trillion market cap, Ejaaz: put over 25 GPUs into space and be the biggest IPO of the year. Ejaaz: But we have a lot of good IPOs to cover. Next year is going to be ridiculous. Ejaaz: Anyways, now it's probably time to get to the spread trade of next year.

Ejaaz: If you're looking to trade markets, if you're looking to make money, Ejaaz: we are going to talk about what company or sector is most likely, Ejaaz: it's what you're most likely to long next year versus most likely to short. Ejaaz: So EJs, where are you starting? on the long front? Ejaaz: What category, what industry, what company are you most excited for that you're Ejaaz: bullish on that you think will make you the most amount of money?

Josh: Okay, I'm going to cheat, Josh. I'm going to give you two answers. Josh: I'm going to give you a company. That's fine. I'm going to give you a sector. Ejaaz: Good thing is this is our show, so we could kind of, you know, go for it. Josh: Okay, I think the company to long next year is going to be Amazon. Josh: I think Amazon has been incredibly slept on. I think their new trinium chips Josh: are going to get used way more than people expect.

Josh: And I think their AWS spread out for AI specifically because they're creating Josh: AI factories is going to be insanely good. Josh: And the sector that I'm longing next year, this is going to be unsexy, Josh: but I think it's going to be true, is still... Josh: Gpus gpus are gonna kill yeah.

Ejaaz: Okay so that's nvidia are we excited about amd also any other gpu Josh: Video amd uh if i could put my asian stock market hound sorry i've run out of Josh: headspace i've only got the tinfoil hat uh it would be samsung um i think samsung's Josh: gonna absolutely kill next year they've got new chip fabs they're working with Josh: elon it's gonna be sick what.

Ejaaz: About you just today uh samsung announced their two um nanometer microchip ahead Ejaaz: of apple for the first time ever which was huge. Ejaaz: For me, the company I'm most excited about is Tesla, which should probably come Ejaaz: to the surprise of absolutely no one. Ejaaz: I am so unfathomably bullish on Tesla in terms of their ability to, Ejaaz: one, change the transportation complex of the entire world through autonomy, Ejaaz: and two, this humanoid robotic line. It's massive.

Ejaaz: Tesla also has this gigantic energy sector with batteries and solar panels, Ejaaz: and all of those things are required for where we're headed to. Ejaaz: I think Tesla has a monopoly on pretty much all of these pillars, Ejaaz: and they are going to crush it in the year of 2026. Ejaaz: In terms of maybe industry that I'm most excited about, I think the picks and Ejaaz: shovels is still the move.

Ejaaz: The like NVIDIA, TSM, ASML, Avago, like all of those, the compute, Ejaaz: the foundry, the lithography, the networking. Ejaaz: We are going to be building data centers so fast and the people who are capable Ejaaz: of putting those together are probably going to be the winners.

Ejaaz: But wait, let's go to the losers. Josh: Can I, can I, wait, can I, before we go, can I tweak my answer on the industry? Josh: I want to update my answer, Josh. Ejaaz: Okay, what do you got? Josh: I'm going with the energy sector. I just realized none of these data centers Josh: or GPUs are going to work if we don't have energy. Josh: And I think we're going to make a lot of investment in energy grids next year. Josh: So I'm longing the energy sector.

Ejaaz: Big time. All right. What are you shorting? Josh: Okay. I'm going to go with meta. Sorry, obvious, but I don't see them turning Josh: around a new frontier model. Josh: I think they made the mistake of spending way too much money for the wrong types Josh: of people to build the models. So I'm bearish 2025 meta. Josh: I'm also bearish 2026 meta. I think it's going to play out similarly to the Josh: metaverse, unfortunately.

Josh: And this conflicts with me because I was super bullish with them earlier on. Josh: The sector that I'm likely to short this year is going to be Neo Clouds. I think I'm bullish. Josh: I can be bullish GPUs, but bearish, too many cloud, Neo cloud providers that are supplying the GPUs. Josh: I think it's kind of bubbly. I think it's kind of pyramid-y. Josh: I think they're going to collapse slightly.

Ejaaz: Okay. I think my choice this year, I'm shorting SaaS companies in general across the board.

Ejaaz: I am not a fan of like any seat-based software with a weak moat. Ejaaz: That's who I am shorting this year. And I'm taking a basket of all of them because Ejaaz: the switching costs are not very high to go from something like, Ejaaz: and not to single out Slack because I think it's a great product, Ejaaz: but to go from something that you pay millions of dollars a month for in something Ejaaz: that like AI can probably automate with an engine and a couple of prompts.

Ejaaz: So I think SaaS companies as a whole who have been sitting pretty, Ejaaz: making tons of money per month, selling millions of seats to companies are going Ejaaz: to have a very tough time when you're able to build applications so easy with Ejaaz: these new AI tools that we're going to have for the next year. Ejaaz: So I think that's probably my biggest loser. I'm long, big tech, short SaaS companies. Ejaaz: Love it. And let's move on to the next one here.

Josh: Okay, Cathedral of Compute. What do you think, Josh, will be? Josh: Who do you think will have the largest data center or cluster by the end of 2026? Ejaaz: I'm taking the cluster part of this because I want to say XAI. Ejaaz: Those guys are absolutely crushing it. They have 200,000 coherent GPUs already.

Ejaaz: They are planning to push to 500,000, then 1 million. if anybody in the world Ejaaz: can engineer a solution to do that it is going to be Elon and the hardcore XAI Ejaaz: team that stays up all night every day making this a reality I'm team XAI Josh: Elon haters won't like my answer. Josh: I'm also going with XAI purely because the proof is in the pudding.

Josh: And you heard it from the man himself, Jensen Huang. He has never met someone Josh: who has built and scaled data centers as quickly as Elon. Josh: I want to remind you guys of a very famous 2025 statistic that was pulled out Josh: this year that it typically takes you about three years to spin up something Josh: like a two gigawatt cluster and at least start laddering that up.

Josh: Elon was able to do it in 30 days that is just insane for the premise of like Josh: a year's foundation crazy.

Ejaaz: Yeah it's it's pretty incredible okay so next one a little a little more bleak Ejaaz: maybe this one isn't a fun one this one doesn't get a gold star this one gets Ejaaz: a little maybe like a red crossing sign um the layoff lotto you just which industry Ejaaz: sees the most layoffs from ai okay Josh: So this one kind of my prediction is it's gonna hit close to home i think knowledge Josh: workers are gonna get screwed next year.

Josh: So here's my reasoning behind this. A lot of focus of the new AI models that Josh: get released, they're focused on this one benchmark called GDPVal. Josh: And that specific benchmark is focused on knowledge work. Josh: And it's gotten really good. GPT 5.2 is chosen in 70% of cases right now by Josh: human experts versus human experts that can actually perform the same job. Josh: So I think this scales. I think by next year, knowledge works.

Josh: So things like document writing, product strategy, all that kind of stuff, Josh: it's going to be done by air. Ejaaz: That's a good take. I think my take stems from a post that I saw from Andre Karpathy, actually. Ejaaz: And he was kind of describing how anything that can get verifiably measured can be automated by AI. Ejaaz: These are things like call centers, like administrative work, Ejaaz: like data input and output.

Ejaaz: Anything that you can create a Ejaaz: verifiable answer and then train backwards against, you can replace by AI. Ejaaz: So those are the first industries that come to my mind. But basically, Ejaaz: if you have a job where there is a very clear outcome that you're guiding to, Ejaaz: and there's a reprogrammable set of steps to get there, chances are an AI is Ejaaz: going to be able to replace that very, very quickly.

Ejaaz: So I think that the goal, if you're a human being who's listening to this and Ejaaz: not an AI, the goal is to be kind of like a polymath across a lot of industries. Ejaaz: The dynamic range of knowledge is going to be very important as we move forward Ejaaz: because part of the intuition that AI cannot replace is just understanding lots Ejaaz: of different categories very deeply and kind of connecting them together and Ejaaz: the connection of those dots dynamically.

Josh: It's intuition, you set the line. It is intuition, that's it. Ejaaz: So yeah if you have an intuition-based job you're Josh: Good i want to push you i want to push you. Ejaaz: Because i want you to select Josh: A specific industry that was a great answer i love it but which industry call centers um.

Ejaaz: Well yeah the first one is like customer support it would be call centers but Ejaaz: also customer support is a very subjective industry depending on the level of Ejaaz: it like if you're working in hospitality you're not getting replaced people Ejaaz: want human-on-human interaction but if you're just like you know filing support Ejaaz: tickets things like that things like administrative data input anything like Ejaaz: verifiable is is what i would be a little bit worried about. Okay.

Josh: I like it. All right. Moving on. Now, China in 2025 has dominated the open source Josh: model. It's not even a question. Josh: They have the best open source model. So the question now is, Josh: will China retain the number one spot in 2026? You over or under? Ejaaz: I am slamming the over on this. China is open source world dominance. Ejaaz: And the United States has no incentive to make an open source model. Ejaaz: Meta tried. They got crushed. There was no benefit from doing it.

Ejaaz: And now they've pivoted to going closed source. Ejaaz: So there's no indication that anybody from the United States will release an Ejaaz: open source model. We saw OpenAI do it earlier this year. Ejaaz: People used it maybe for half a day and then never looked back. Ejaaz: China is innovating via open source. They will continue to maintain that dominance Ejaaz: through 2026. What do you think? Josh: I'm going on to for one. simple reason and it's political.

Josh: I do not think the US government and the US in general wants US founders building Josh: on Chinese open source models. Josh: It's no secret that this is already happening in Silicon Valley. Josh: In fact, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Josh: integrates AI features into Airbnb, guess what? He's used a Quen derivative, Josh: a Quen model from Alibaba, right?

Josh: I think this trend is going to get increasingly worse and people are not going Josh: to want that for fear of China implementing a backdoor in one of their open source codes. Josh: So with all of that said, I think there's going to be an additional focus on Josh: open sourcing, just not all, but certain US models and they're going to take the lead.

Ejaaz: Okay. Well, next up we got the crash out catastrophe. Ejas, this was actually your suggestion here. Ejaaz: The AI founder most likely to crash out. For example, publicly insults appear Ejaaz: or even go to jail. Who's it going to be? Josh: Yes. Yes. I had a specific individual in mind and it's going to surprise you Josh: listeners because you always call me an Elon fanboy. It's Elon Musk.

Josh: I think Elon's going to crash out. I didn't say it was going to be a good or Josh: bad crash out, but I think he's going to crash the hell out because he's going Josh: to be super annoyed by something Sam Altman or Trump says. Josh: And by definition of a crash out i mean he's going to yell insult or crash out Josh: on public news on a public forum probably x um so i've got him i'm doubling down on elon.

Ejaaz: Okay i'm taking sam altman on this one uh he had a little issue yeah yeah yeah Ejaaz: if you remember the episode with brad gerstner a few weeks ago it was fairly Ejaaz: recently where he just kind of had like he was like hey listen dude if you hate Ejaaz: this like i could sell your shares and he got very like snippy with him and Ejaaz: he's he's got a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Ejaaz: They have a lot of debts and a lot of payments that need to be made.

Ejaaz: And things are going to get stressful. And I'm not sure how well he's going Ejaaz: to be able to deal with stress in the public eye. So I'm going to take Sam Altman on that one. Josh: All right. All right. Next up, we have Bubble Buster. Josh: This category is the AI bubble most likely to implode.

Josh: And note that I didn't say the entire AI bubble because I don't think that's Josh: how it's going to work. But I think they're going to be implosions with smaller bubbles. Josh: Josh, What's your bet here? Ejaaz: I think my bet is going to be Ejaaz: open source models is what I'm going to pick here. And I think the reason behind Ejaaz: that is because China is starting to develop an advantage when it comes to chips for the first time.

Ejaaz: And part of the reason they've maintained their open source nature is because Ejaaz: they have wanted to kind of, you know, accelerate things. Ejaaz: And when things are open source, you could build on top of each other, like building blocks. Ejaaz: Now that China has started to get like Blackwell chips, they have very clearly Ejaaz: defined, like very good models. Ejaaz: It makes sense for them to close the door and to shut things down.

Ejaaz: And if China shuts down the open source models and the United States don't have Ejaaz: any incentive to do so, I think the open source model industry probably gets crushed. Ejaaz: There's going to be no leading models that are really excellent to use. Ejaaz: It's all going to be closed source, closed gated in the race to AI. Ejaaz: So that's my bubble buster. Josh: I like that. I like that. I'm going to go with open AI partnerships. Josh: I think that bubble is going to burst.

Ejaaz: Oh, the circular economy? Josh: The circular economy, specifically for open air who have signed to the tune Josh: of $1.4 trillion in payments. Josh: I think there is no way they're going to meet their targets next year or the Josh: year after that, unless there's something written in the contract, Josh: which in some cases they are.

Josh: But for example, the $300 billion deal with Oracle, no way they're paying $100 Josh: billion next year when they're losing $12 billion and generating that. Josh: So we're going to see some collapse there. Whether they've IPO'd in that time remains to be seen.

Ejaaz: We'll see. Okay, well, next we have what topic that's very close to my heart, Ejaaz: which is the breakout hardware device. Ejaaz: Do we get a breakout AI device that people love, not including a phone? Ejaaz: It cannot be an iPhone because, well, Apple can't even ship. Ejaaz: But even if it was, do we get a breakout AI device?

Josh: Um yes and i know this Josh: is gonna get under your skin josh but i fully believe it google glass 2.0 project Josh: aura as they're gonna make me sick i think it's i think it's gonna i think it's Josh: gonna slap because it can't be worse than google glass v1 they've watched meta Josh: do the ray-ban display and absolutely Josh: flop they're not gonna put out something that people hate that's.

Ejaaz: Like saying going to one prison is worse than the other like they're just they're Ejaaz: both suck like being better Nothing is not a good place to be. Ejaaz: I think those devices still do not get to a place where they're actually useful. Ejaaz: Who have you got? My breakout hardware device, which may be off by a few months Ejaaz: in terms of timing, but it's the OpenAI Johnny Ive device. Ejaaz: I am so excited. I think this is going to be the biggest...

Ejaaz: Event of the year next year in terms of how it's Ejaaz: going to change the way that we interface with ai this is the first time a Ejaaz: company's rethinking the way that we engage with computers as Ejaaz: a whole is the person who designed the most popular handheld Ejaaz: device in the world the iphone and now he's doing it again for open Ejaaz: ai the biggest company with the most amount of users and i think whatever device

Ejaaz: whatever product they ship next year is going to actually impact a tremendous Ejaaz: amount of people and really alter the way that we use hardware where you will Ejaaz: not need to be reliant on a cell phone in your pocket to navigate the worlds Ejaaz: of the internet and AI. So I'm excited about that one. Josh: Is my tinfoil hat on? I don't think they ship next year, Josh. I don't think they ship. Ejaaz: They might not, but I'm going to be bullish and optimistic.

Josh: All right, moving on. Comeback player of the year. Josh: This is someone who has been beaten down on in 2025, but they're going to make Josh: a big 180, similar to how Google did this year. Josh, who you got? Ejaaz: I got Apple, man. I'm stoked for Apple. I'm so excited for them.

Ejaaz: I think they're going to absolutely no i Ejaaz: shouldn't say that i don't think they're going to crush it next year i think Ejaaz: they're going to do much better than they did this year why well Ejaaz: because they're outsourcing their intelligence to google Ejaaz: and that's what they that's what they've always needed to do they did this with Ejaaz: their search results where apple didn't create a search browser they just put

Ejaaz: google default and safari on the iphone they're doing the same with gemini i Ejaaz: think edge compute is a huge thing to be wary of because if you can run ai on Ejaaz: your phone the inference charges are free to people who are building there. Ejaaz: So there's a strong incentive for developers to build on iPhones. Ejaaz: There's a strong incentive for Apple to offload their intelligence to Google Ejaaz: and just focus on the experience that they're exceptionally good at.

Ejaaz: So I think if those things happen, Ejaaz: Apple will have a really home run year next year as it relates to AI. Josh: Yeah, I think that's a good take. My take, and again, I'm wearing the tinfoil hat for this one. Josh: Cursor. Cursor has been beaten down on this year because things like Anthropic Josh: Claude Code and a bunch of other competitors are just better vibe coding apps. Josh: But Cursor has a crazy customer mode and so many people still use it.

Josh: They still might use Claude via it, but they love the Cursor UI. Josh: So my conspiracy theory, Josh, is Cursor runs on VS Code. Josh: That is a fork of Microsoft. Microsoft is currently bleeding AI users. Josh: I think Microsoft acquires Cursor and remolds Cursor for their enterprise audience. And it slams. Ejaaz: You have some big takes. We haven't mentioned Microsoft a whole lot in these episodes. We have not.

Ejaaz: Okay, so this one's totally not biased at all. Please ignore the humanoid robot

Ejaaz: to the left of this prompt. Ejaaz: That is the Tesla Optimus. Most valuable robot, Ejaz. Which one is it going to be? Josh: I know what answer you're going to give. So I'm intentionally going to give a different one here. Josh: And also because I believe they might actually pull it off. Figure. Josh: Brett Adcock, I think, is an awesome CEO. I have seen so many demos of this figure robot. Josh: And in my opinion, it's the only one that can go toe-to-toe with Tesla Optimus.

Josh: I think because of the fact that they've been focused 100% on this for years Josh: now, they've got a good chance of scaling this next year. I'm excited. Ejaaz: Okay. My answer for most valuable robot actually is not Optimus. It is the CyberCab. Ejaaz: I think Optimus will not reach the production scale required to actually create a lot of value.

Ejaaz: And they would likely just have like early prototypes. By the end of next year, Ejaaz: we will have cybercabs rolled out, hopefully across the country, Ejaaz: that are genuinely self-driving cybercaxes. Ejaaz: And that is going to be such a mind-bending reality for a lot of people who've never sat in one before. Ejaaz: So in terms of value generation, in terms of shock and awe, in terms of acclimatizing Ejaaz: the average person to the world of AI that we're headed towards,

Ejaaz: I think the cybercab is going to be the most valuable robot. of next year.

Josh: Love it. Josh: Okay, moving on. Most popular AI entertainment app. Josh: Now, the idea of this is not the model, not necessarily ChatGPT's app, Josh: but what kind of new breakthrough AI feature or product do you think people will be consuming? Josh: What's the TikTok of 2026? Josh, who you got? Ejaaz: I think the most popular AI entertainment app next year is just going to be YouTube.

Ejaaz: I think it's a continuation of what works, I think YouTube is actually leaning Ejaaz: into AI very heavily in addition to supporting short form content built around Ejaaz: AI in a way that I don't see a lot of other companies doing. Ejaaz: There's probably more hours spent on YouTube than just about any other internet website on the planet. Ejaaz: And them signaling that they're planning to lead hard into AI means that we

Ejaaz: probably get a natural extension. They're building where the people are. Ejaaz: I think YouTube next year will be the most popular AI entertainment app. Josh: Josh vo3 youtube videos next year dude it will save us a lot of time it's. Ejaaz: All it's all there all the parts are there Josh: Maybe some ai avatars of us people already in the comments think that we're how.

Ejaaz: Are you going to verify that we're not Josh: Yeah that's true that's true i might lean into it all right my big bet is it's Josh: going to be a big year for the gooners i think adult ai content is going to Josh: absolutely slap. I'm not saying it's good. Josh: I'm just saying Sam's already indicated that they're going to have an adult Josh: version of ChatGPT releasing very soon. Josh: He said end of year. I don't think that's going to happen. I think it's going to happen in 2026.

Josh: And I think that video models are getting just good enough for the AI adult Josh: industry to really kill it next year. Josh: Um i'm not happy about it i just think that that's exactly what's going to happen Josh: grok companions are going to get the next level up it's all going to get.

Ejaaz: Crazy oh god that's a scary future i'm not looking forward to agreed okay so Ejaaz: here we have the largest model um like Josh: Victoria, Josh: that's funny i hope you guys get that joke that is. Ejaaz: Yeah that's a deep cut for anyone who's around in 2021 on the internet anyways Ejaaz: um yes the largest model not the one walking down the runway the one that is Ejaaz: powering your AI tokens to your computer, which do we have for largest model?

Josh: Josh, I have a general hot take on this. Are you ready? Okay. Ejaaz: And also, how are you going to define the largest model too? Josh: Okay, so in my opinion, largest model is like how many parameters the model has. Josh: So we started off with models with like 10 billion parameters, Josh: and then we scaled all the way to a trillion parameters. Josh: If you're asking yourself what the hell a parameter is, think of it as like Josh: the genetic makeup of a model.

Josh: You're giving it the characteristics, what its eye color is, Josh: how intelligent it is, what its tone is, stuff like that, you know, Josh: stats, characteristics. Josh: I think parameters will not matter next year. Josh: I think the thing that matters next year is post-training. Josh: 2025 has been all about pre-training. Oh my God, the most amount of compute Josh: that we give a model, the smarter the model is going to be.

Josh: It's pre-training, pre-training. I don't think that matters at all. Josh: I think we're going to have a breakthrough in 2026 for post-training. Josh: I think people are going to spend more time with reinforcement learning and reasoning. Josh: And that's what's going to give the level up for the model. So the resulting trend will be,

Josh: Models will still get slightly larger, but it won't matter. The resulting intelligence Josh: that comes from a slight model increase will be exponential because of post-training stuff. Ejaaz: Okay, that's a pretty good take. I think in terms of, I'm just going to throw Ejaaz: an arbitrary number for parameter count. I feel like 15 trillion is a good number. Josh: 15?

Ejaaz: So XAI with Grok5 is planning to release a 7 trillion parameter model, Ejaaz: and that is coming in Q1 of next year.

Ejaaz: It's going to be a massive gargantuan model. so Ejaaz: for them to double that in a year seems possible Ejaaz: feasible because when you think about how quick i mean Ejaaz: i mean even from this year we went from oh three to five point Ejaaz: two and it was just like these unbelievable model jumps yeah and i suspect we'll Ejaaz: get the same thing whether or not that matters is probably the more interesting

Ejaaz: question like you were mentioning is like do we even need a higher parameter Ejaaz: count than that or is it just more on the like more niche post training stuff Ejaaz: uh that remains to be determined we will see uh but anyways next okay Josh: Um context window world records sticking Josh: along the theme of like size of model what matters Josh: a lot is how many tokens or how many words you can Josh: prompt the model with the more tokens you can prompt the model with the more

Josh: context it has the smarter the answer it gives now um 2025 was a record-breaking Josh: year they hit i think million tokens in some cases on unofficial 1.5 million Josh: tokens josh who do you think what do you think the record's going to be.

Ejaaz: I think the limit does not exist i think Ejaaz: the context window expands to infinity and this is a very bullish take very Ejaaz: optimistic take but there are a lot of researchers like safe super intelligence Ejaaz: with ilia's company and um thinking machines who are attempting and even google's Ejaaz: trying to do this to remove the constraint of the context window altogether.

Ejaaz: And I don't know what type of magical moon math they're doing, Ejaaz: but I suspect that next year will be the year where possibly we can get that. Ejaaz: And what does that imply? Well, it can get this Ejaaz: gigantic understanding of the Ejaaz: world around you and refer to it precisely without a lot of fuzzy loss. Ejaaz: So there's going to be a lot of breakthroughs, but my hope is that the context Ejaaz: window world record will be infinity by the end of next year. Okay.

Josh: Wow. That's, I mean, that is a crazy prediction. I love it. Josh: I don't have a strong take on a particular number, but what I will say in accordance Josh: to my previous answer, which is, Josh: I think post-training is going to be really important context window is going Josh: to matter a lot here so i'm bullish large large large context windows next year okay.

Ejaaz: Big context window year next up we have winner take most ejs does one model Ejaaz: become the default for greater than 50 percent of the usage Josh: Yes. Okay. So I'm measuring this, Josh, on amount of tokens processed. Josh: So purely mathematical, how used is the model? Josh: And I'm going with whatever the latest version of Anthropics Claude is going to be. Josh: Maybe it's Opus 4.5, but they're probably going to release Opus 5 or Opus 6 by the end of next year.

Josh: Coding is the most used content. If you look at any of the coding measurements Josh: it's like 50 of the tokens that are being processed right now i think they gain Josh: a market dominance on that i'm going.

Ejaaz: I'm gonna take open ai and chat gpt as the model with greater than 50 of the Ejaaz: usage because they have this dominant monopoly where it's like something like Ejaaz: 80 of the users and i guess i'm kind of thinking more on the user front where Ejaaz: it's slowly decreasing but the Ejaaz: question is how quick is that rate of decrease or Ejaaz: how quick are other companies able to eat their market share Ejaaz: and it's been accelerating we've seen Gemini take over some

Ejaaz: of it we've seen Anthropic take over some of it but I think ChatGPT Ejaaz: and OpenAI can sustain 50% for at least the next year and then it makes sense Ejaaz: that they eventually find a resting spot around like 25-30% maybe slightly less Ejaaz: depending on how many big winners there are But I'm going to take OpenAI as Ejaaz: the model that becomes the default for greater than 50% of the usage, Ejaaz: as it relates to users, at least.

Josh: Okay. Next up, we have the biggest loser. Can Meta keep the lead? Josh, who have you got? Ejaaz: Can Meta keep the lead? I... Ejaaz: I think they can, but I don't want to bet against them because one thing that Ejaaz: I learned as I've invested in these companies or considered investing in a lot Ejaaz: of these companies is you want to let the winners ride.

Ejaaz: And there's only so many companies that can win when it comes to the scale that's Ejaaz: required the amount of compute, the amount of money. Ejaaz: And I think Meta has a chance. They have a ton of resources. Ejaaz: They have a ton of people that support them. I think the biggest loser of next Ejaaz: year is going to be the bears.

Ejaaz: As a broad category, anyone who is bearish on the industry who thinks this bubble Ejaaz: is going to pop in the next 12 months they are going to find themselves sadly Ejaaz: mistaken and very badly hurt if they attempt to short this huge wave that we have coming up Josh: Okay i'm gonna give a Josh: specific company and that company is microsoft Josh: they have already given revised numbers uh before the quarterly report which

Josh: shows that they have less customers using their ai models in general and their Josh: ai features this isn't a dig at ai in general it's a dig at microsoft's capability Josh: to ship good AI products. Josh: I think Mustafa Suleiman, the head of AI, kind of does a bad job at what he's Josh: doing, which might be a crazy take, but it's just like, I don't hear about his Josh: updates. I hear about Demis's. Josh: And I think that the best thing that Microsoft has and will ever do in AI for

Josh: now, at least, is their investment in open AI. Nothing to do with their company in general. Ejaaz: Big time. Yeah, Microsoft has sadly been absent from a lot of these conversations Ejaaz: we've been having. There's just not much going on over there.

Ejaaz: Anyways, the AI blue chip, EJAS, Who is the most valuable AI company by the end of 2026? Josh: Anthropic. Ejaaz: This is Anthropic. Wow, that's a big one. Josh: I think Anthropic IPOs, I still think... Josh: I think Anthropik IPOs, I think Anthropik IPOs, they're already rumored to do Josh: it. They're engaging investment banks to set it up. Ejaaz: You realize how big some of these companies are, right? Like Google and NVIDIA Ejaaz: is a $4 trillion company.

Josh: Oh, okay. I guess the way that I'm looking at it is like most ROI that you could Josh: get from like a public perspective. Josh: That was the way I was thinking about it. Not the largest market cap. Ejaaz: Okay, well that counts too. Is that allowed? Is that okay? Josh: Yeah, I'm going to go. Ejaaz: These are our rules, man.

Josh: Okay, okay, okay. So I'm still going to go with Anthropic. I think they're going Josh: to IPO at a crazy valuation, but that valuation is only going to get higher Josh: as more and more people realize that coding AI is the ultimate intelligence Josh: that you kind of want to own and Anthropic dominates. Ejaaz: Okay. I'm going to say the most valuable AI company in the world by the end of 2026 will be Google.

Ejaaz: They will, they're already close. They're right there. They will continue their dominance. Ejaaz: They will continue to not only build CPUs for their own in-house compute, Ejaaz: but we'll start selling them.

Ejaaz: They have such a head start across so many pillars they have Ejaaz: the best models they have unbelievable rate of execution and if Ejaaz: they just continue along this pathway they're already trillions of dollars ahead Ejaaz: of companies like open ai and there's no reason in my mind that they won't be Ejaaz: able to outpace a company like nvidia when it comes to just growing pure market Ejaaz: cap like what a incredible business for me ai blue ship of the year is google

Ejaaz: and that brings us to the crown Josh: Who has the best model measured by intelligence? Josh: So this is kind of the way we've been ranking the top number one AI models throughout the entirety of 2025. Josh: I'm split on this. Josh, I'm curious to hear your answer. Ejaaz: Okay, I could give my answer first. I think, and this is probably a hot take, Ejaaz: but I'm feeling optimistic.

Ejaaz: The answer to this question by the end of 2026, and I'm giving them two gold Ejaaz: stars, is going to be XAI. Ejaaz: I think they will have the best model measured by intelligence by the end of next year.

Ejaaz: The reasoning is because they have been in pursuit of Ejaaz: truth and they have been in pursuit of synthetic data where Ejaaz: they are really trying to hone in the quality of Ejaaz: intelligence that they use to train these models and that Ejaaz: is paired with the fact that they're able to build these clusters larger and Ejaaz: just faster than everybody else so it seems like their lead is going to start

Ejaaz: to make itself clear towards the end of next year because they're honestly they're Ejaaz: going to be the ones with enough compute to actually run something that powerful Ejaaz: it's not that other companies won't get there they'll just be the only ones that can actually run it Josh: Okay okay i see it um i'm gonna Josh: go with google gemini and i Josh: think i have a very strong case for this uh it's funny Josh: you mentioned synthetic data i'd say google are

Josh: the leaders in world models and i think world models are going to be the Josh: most important thing kind of next year and it to help simulate kind of intelligence Josh: um they're winning that with genie 3 i think they have nailed multi-modality Josh: uh they've got the best video model they've got the best audio model uh if you Josh: combine all of those things into the number one LLM, which is Gemini, Josh: and it all feeds back, you end up with the smartest model.

Josh: That's how they were able to catch up so quickly. I think Google takes the ground. Josh: And the final one, trendsetter.

Josh: What's the hottest trend that isn't so hot right now, but will be hot next year in 2026? Ejaaz: My answer is going to be the death of the text box. Ejaaz: I think the trend that we're going to see next year, and this is an optimistic Ejaaz: thing that I really want to see, is LLMs or AI companies in general moving away Ejaaz: from the LLM, from the text box, from the way that we actually engage with these AI models.

Ejaaz: Basically, the entire interface is that of Google's in the early 1990s. Ejaaz: It is a single text box. you write something, you expect answers. Ejaaz: I think one of the hottest trends is going to be removing that friction from Ejaaz: the experience when people engage with AI and creating more of a Ejaaz: like fully embodied ambient intelligence system where it predicts more of what Ejaaz: you want. It kind of understands the context better.

Ejaaz: And it's not just limited to text in a box. And I'm expecting that to really Ejaaz: evolve pretty rapidly as companies kind of fight to onboard more users. Ejaaz: They're going to be inclined to want to give them more value. Ejaaz: And in order to give them more value, you got to kind of tell them how to extract it from these models. Ejaaz: And that's the trend that I think is going to be hot and that I'm very excited Ejaaz: and looking forward to in the new year. EJ, what do you got?

Josh: I like that take. I am going to double down on something I mentioned previously, which is world models. Josh: I think it is going to be the single most important type of model that goes Josh: viral next year purely because it creates a bunch of synthetic data. Josh: Why is that important? We're running out of data. Josh: All these models are trained on the same data. They're not going to get any Josh: more intelligent using the same data. We need new data. What is the best way to do that?

Josh: Well, what if you could create a simulated environment of the earth and stick Josh: in your AI model there? It's how agents are going to get smarter. Josh: It's how AI models in general are going to get smarter. Josh: And Josh, it's how robots are going to get smarter. Tesla's already using it Josh: for their full self-driving AI model, right? Josh: They're using it to simulate car accidents so that, you know,

Josh: they can figure out how to keep people safe. So I think world models are going to be crazy. Josh: I kind of cheated because Demis was really bullish on this on a podcast episode Josh: that I listened to recently. But hey, he's the godfather of AI. Ejaaz: So could we maybe do the inverse of this too is what was the hottest trend in Ejaaz: 2025 that will absolutely not exist in 2026. Do you have any off the top of your head? Josh: Okay, you go first. I got to think about this.

Ejaaz: Okay, because my answer, the reason why I'm asking is because I feel like death Ejaaz: to the agentic browser is certainly a trend that we will consider to see. Ejaaz: And that's one that I like a great amounts of joy from because the agentic browser Ejaaz: just seems like an unnecessary complexity when I could have an AI go off and do the hard thing for me. Ejaaz: And we talked about this with the CEO of Perplexity, Arvind,

Ejaaz: who was on the show earlier this year. And he was talking about Ejaaz: how he thought it was important. But the reality is that there's two buckets. Ejaaz: There's leisure and there's productivity. And I don't need a browser for productivity. Ejaaz: And I think that's going to be the trend that kind of goes away and never returns. Josh: Okay, Josh, I'm going to be hyper specific on my answer because it really friggin annoys me.

Josh: Reservation agents. I don't need you to book me a restaurant reservation. Josh: I don't need you to find flights for me. Josh: I'll do that myself. but if you Josh: can give me an amazing health stack or supplements based on my blood types and Josh: everything go ahead if you can automate 50 of my day job go ahead i don't care Josh: for the reservation agents that got released by open ai uh google this year Josh: kill them i hope they never make it i love it i love it and.

Ejaaz: I think that probably concludes our our 2026 prediction show Josh: No no no there's one more josh what more and this is the most important. Ejaaz: One a surprise one Josh: You and I have strived to keep episodes on average to 20 to 25 minutes this Josh: year. What's your over under on this episode? Ejaaz: We are absolutely taking the under. Every episode will be under 25 minutes no matter what. Ejaaz: That is a hard cutoff and we will absolutely not sway.

Ejaaz: Any higher than that yeah there's Josh: No way that's not going to happen right yeah.

Ejaaz: Certainly not no this is this is this is very serious this Ejaaz: is a a hard deadline we want to deliver Ejaaz: the best 60 minutes of content every week and that comes Ejaaz: in the form of three episodes and they will not be any longer including this Ejaaz: episode which is probably already at minute number 40 or something Ejaaz: like that we've been going on for a long time so maybe we should end Ejaaz: it here i think this has been the predictions episode

Ejaaz: um the task for anybody who's listening this is Ejaaz: very important is you need to put your predictions in Ejaaz: the comment section that way we can time stamp them and Ejaaz: reference them next year if you want to be top dog Ejaaz: if you want to be the oracle who sees the Ejaaz: future in a way that we don't or no one else does then drop your comments underneath Ejaaz: this video or this podcast episode you could even post on x tell us what your

Ejaaz: predictions are make a nice little thread we'll share it with everybody what Ejaaz: do you think is going to be you can even answer these questions what are your Ejaaz: predictions for next year i want to hear it let us know what you think Josh: Definitely. And I'm going to let my ego enter the video for a second, Josh. Josh: We are less than a thousand subscribers off of 30,000.

Josh: And listen, I hold no allegiance to the number 30,000, but it's a really nice Josh: round number that I would love to reach by the end of the year. Josh: So if you enjoy our episodes, if you enjoy our content, if you've enjoyed our Josh: predictions, if you think we're going to be at least 50% right, Josh: I would call you crazy, but I appreciate it.

Josh: Please like, please subscribe, please turn on notifications give us a rating Josh: if you're listening to on spotify or apple music and we will see you josh in the new year.

Ejaaz: I don't we'll see we're gonna see when all this comes out Ejaaz: there was one last point i wanted to make which is for the love of god if you do Ejaaz: anything please watch this video because e-jazz is wearing the most Ejaaz: ridiculous hat and if you're listening to audio only you are missing out Ejaaz: and i'm boiling head over here it's um Ejaaz: yeah so it's worth it's worth um watching spotify is my preference youtube

Ejaaz: is great but yeah we'll see what the calendar plays out if this is the last Ejaaz: year um the last of the year well we're gonna in for a pretty mighty 2026 but Ejaaz: if it's not yeah we'll be back again at least one more episode before the year Ejaaz: is now so as always yeah like you guys were saying thank you so much for watching Ejaaz: for being here with us and we'll see you guys in the next one peace guys