| What does the year 2026 hold for technical communication? Will AI replace tech writers? Or will it help them bring content to the next level? We have asked the experts in our community to share their predictions. Here is what Joe Gollner had to say: |
There have been three major technology revolutions in the last 30 years. Each of them was propelled by the need to integrate capabilities that had become fragmented. This was true for the Web in the early 1990s and XML Web Services in the late 1990s. It is true today for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. This tells us something very important about the future of technical communication, which will become visible in 2026.
Essentially, in 2026 we can expect technical communicators to come under tremendous pressure to re-integrate their work, content and tools into the fabric of their organizations. While it varies by market, technical communication, and its tools, can be accused of having become too specialized. This creates and reinforces silos instead of enabling integrated behavior. AI agents are a lot like our customers in that they do not care about these silos. What they care about is the content that is found within, and shared between, those silos. 2026 will be the year technical communication must come in from the cold and find new ways to help organizations to re-integrate their content and their capabilities in response to this latest revolution.
Joe Gollner, Engineering Content