I expect it surprises no one to hear me say that a major trend for 2026 will involve AI. The interesting question is, “in what way, for what use?” I’m going to dare to say that generative AI for document creation will be only marginally useful. It can help condense large volumes of information, for example, but it needs a human to verify that all vital information is included. The real interest for AI is on the delivery side.
AI needs to be embedded in what has recently been labeled Content Operations (“ContentOps”) – the part of technical communication that supports the software and systems that we use to get our information to users. AI RAG architectures, knowledge graphs, and ontologies, combined to produce what Michael Iantosca calls “Deterministic AI” can help deliver trustworthy, verified information in a manner that is not only personalized to a user profile, but sensitive to the user’s context, situation, stage in a task, etc. And that has real value you can measure.
Ray Gallon, The Transformation Society