CEO Outlook 2026

CEO Outlook 2026

The one thing nearly every major tech CEO is putting at the top of their 2026 agenda? AI.

Their message is clear: Partners and customers that embrace AI now will be best positioned to capture the massive opportunities on the horizon.

Find out where CEOs are placing their bets in 2026 and how they are relying on partners to help them tackle emerging technology opportunities this year.

Balazs Fejes, EPAM Systems, Inc.

What is the biggest market opportunity your company will tackle in 2026?
The biggest market opportunity for us in 2026 is AI; helping our clients become truly AI-native by building out their AI foundations. We have built on investments made over the last two and a half years; and we have seen these efforts already begin to pay off. In 2026, we will continue focusing on supporting AI-native delivery by helping our clients establish the foundational capabilities required for adopting AI at scale -- cloud migration and modernization, building data products and modern data platforms and products, and the transformation of their legacy systems.

What are the key technology investments you plan to make in 2026?
Our key technology investments this year are centered on strengthening our AI-native delivery capabilities. This means investing heavily in our people by upskilling teams to design, build, and deliver advanced AI solutions, while also developing the right accelerators, playbooks, capabilities and reusable frameworks to help our clients' transformations.

What do you see as the toughest challenges facing your customers in 2026?
We see two challenges: 1) separating AI hype from reality and 2) bringing ROI, delivering measurable business impact for our clients' AI investments -- which will help accelerate growth. Many organizations, [boards and executives] have made significant AI investments, and are increasingly expecting returns on their investments.

What is the No. 1 thing you want your vendor partners to do to support your business in 2026?
We want to continue working with our platform and strategic partners to help us separate the hype from reality, for AI, for our clients. And also, to help our clients realize that to make AI [and Agentic AI] a reality, the need for engineering expertise, the need for skills, and the need for the expert knowledge worker is a must, as implementation is not just a prompt away.

My top priority for 2026 is:
My top priority for 2026, beyond the usual revenue and margin improvement, is AI -- accelerating our own transformation into an AI-native organization. This means embedding AI into how we operate, how we deliver, and how we bring solutions to our clients. A critical part of this effort is educating and upskilling our workforce, so our teams can effectively leverage AI in every aspect of delivery. By building an AI-native, AI-assisted delivery model, we position our organization and our clients to drive greater efficiency, innovation, and measurable business outcomes.

Read the full article here.

Discover how to redefine your enterprise: innovate, operate and outpace your competitors in the era of AI: https://www.epam.com/services/artificial-intelligence