By Guest contributor |
The global economy will expand by just 2.6 per cent in 2026, down from 2.9 per cent in 2024, according to UN Trade and Development.
As we step into a year of slowing economic growth, industrial leaders face greater pressure to cut costs and streamline operations because even small gains can enhance margins. Efficiency is quickly becoming the new standard as businesses look to increase productivity gains, foster innovation and enhance resilience. Continued success will likely depend on redesigning operations through digital transformation, better operational visibility, rethinking business processes and radical collaboration across the value chain.
That’s true for each of this year’s megatrends, but how can industry use existing solutions to raise its game in the months ahead?
Climate events are now an operational reality
Research from McKinsey shows that more frequent extreme weather led to climate-related losses reaching $165 billion in the first half of 2025. It also indicates that organisations’ earnings releases increasingly refer to climate resilience, and many have adopted the adaptive technologies essential to staying competitive. A particularly sensitive flashpoint is water insecurity, something the City of Salem in Oregon, USA, is experiencing with climate-linked algae blooms and cyanotoxins flourishing in its waterways. In response, the Oregonian capital has implemented a system that aggregates and analyses diverse water data, from depth and turgidity to satellite imagery, so authorities are alerted to harmful water events and can act to protect supplies.
Electricity grids become the energy transition bottleneck
The global energy access gap has worsened on the back of population and industrial growth – today 730 million people live without electricity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Yet, IEA’s data shows demand is increasing, with data centres in particular set to double current consumption by 2030. While renewables are entering the system at speed, the IEA estimates that permitting delays still hold back at least 3,000 gigawatts of clean energy projects. According to the Carbon Collective, this is enough energy to power two billion households for one year. To tackle increasing grid pressures, existing energy players are turning to industrial intelligence. For example, UK-based renewable electricity, nuclear and bioenergy leader Drax uses CONNECT, AVEVA’s data-driven insights industrial intelligence platform, to reduce outages, re-risked assets and unlock millions of pounds in projected savings. CONNECT is built on Microsoft Azure.
Fractured supply chains are upending established business flows
Across industry, geopolitical issues are altering trade pathways. Figures from Deloitte indicate that Mexico already accounts for 15.4 per cent of US trade, overtaking China at 13.9 per cent. Meanwhile, McKinsey reports that 33 per cent of companies are developing nearshoring or onshoring plans, with a survey from the US National Association of Manufacturers indicating that 78 per cent of manufacturers are doing so because of trade uncertainty. As producers rebuild decades-old ingredients supply chains, they increasingly depend on end-to-end data visibility to deliver industrial intelligence such as tariff scenarios, risk planning and logistics costs. The result is a new kind of human and technology partnership that enables companies to quickly rebalance networks and prepare for a future of human-machine collaboration.
AI’s multilayered impact will touch nearly every sector
AI has advanced from hype to deployment and will move closer to achieving a headline impact of nearly $15.7 trillion in global economic value over the medium term, forecasts PwC. In fact, research from McKinsey shows that almost nine in 10 companies (88 per cent) already regularly use AI in at least one business function. However, we can expect use cases to expand considerably, as multiple types of AI are used in practical and measurable ways to support complex outcomes, whether these are generative and vision applications, or AI agents that automate routine tasks.
Predictive maintenance and quality control are the most common AI use cases across industries, from manufacturing to utilities and energy. For some, the results can be transformative: food and beverage manufacturer Nestlé, for instance, quickly reduced product variations for its Nesquik and Ovaltine brands with user-friendly dashboards and no-code analytics. The result was a 10 per cent reduction in waste and improved buyer confidence, which prompted the company to expand the approach to other product lines as part of its wider sustainable manufacturing transformation.
Labour shortages are now becoming structural
Demographic changes and new ways of doing business are driving systemic labour gaps. US manufacturers could face 1.9 million unfilled jobs by 2033 if current trends persist, predicts Deloitte. The World Economic Forum (WEF) forecasts there will be a large increase in demand for technical skills like AI, cybersecurity and technological literacy, particularly in the renewables, mining and energy sectors. Digital platforms that extend worker productivity will also become more prevalent. Those gains come by way of assisted maintenance such as at Carson City Public Works in Nevada, Las Vegas, where operators no longer need to leave their offices to check on remote facilities across their 158-square-mile operations area. Other applications lie in on-site training, automated quality checks and knowledge transfer. As the WEF notes, this is the only viable path to meeting output targets with available headcount.
Industrial intelligence supports proactive operations
With end-to-end data visibility and AI, industrial software can now scale to tackle increasingly complicated business problems, evolving from a tool that reports on operations to one that runs them. In the process, human judgement is being augmented and strengthened.
Industrial enterprises are facing a period that is growing increasingly non-linear, accelerated, volatile and interconnected. The companies that thrive in future will be those able to turn disconnected tools into integrated systems that learn and adapt continuously.
Learn more about CONNECT at: www.aveva.com/en/solutions/connect
Kim Custeau is executive vice president of portfolio management at AVEVA
Discover more insights in the Spring 2026 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.