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Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy: 7 predictions for enterprise AI in 2026

Published

2 days ago

December 28, 2025

Over the past year, AI has begun reshaping work in tangible ways, with coding assistants that speed software development and chatbots that handle routine customer inquiries. But 2026 will be the year organizations move beyond these initial use cases to deploy systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously across core operations.

This next stage has the potential to deliver dramatic gains, driven by shifts already underway in how AI models are built and deployed. The following predictions outline how the landscape will evolve in 2026 — from wider access to competitive models to new standards for measuring AI reliability — and how successful organizations will differentiate themselves to capitalize on these changes.

1 – Big Tech’s Grip on AI Models Will Loosen

For years, conventional wisdom held that only a handful of tech giants could afford to build competitive AI models. In 2026, that will change. New approaches to training like those developed by DeepSeek have shown that building the biggest, most expensive models isn’t the only path to strong performance. Companies are now taking open-source foundation models and customizing them with their own data, creating a faster, cheaper route to competitive AI. This democratization means far more organizations will create their own tailored models instead of relying solely on OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic.

2 – AI Will Have Its ‘HTTP’ Moment With a New Protocol for Agent Collaboration

Much as HTTP allows websites to connect freely across the internet, a dominant AI protocol will emerge next year that will allow agents to work together across different systems and platforms. This move towards standardization will unlock the true potential of agentic AI by allowing specialized agents from different providers to communicate and collaborate without vendor lock-in. Organizations will finally be able to build interconnected AI ecosystems rather than siloed applications tied to single providers. The age of the proprietary AI walled garden is ending.

3 – Teams That Resist ‘AI Slop’ Will Dominate the Creative Landscape

In 2026, a divide will emerge between those who use AI to amplify their own creativity and those who use it as a crutch. One group will leverage AI to expand their creativity and push their own ideas further and faster. The other will take the easy route, churning out generic content that floods the market but doesn’t resonate with customers. Organizations that take the former approach — empowering people to think strategically and use AI to enhance, rather than replace, their own creativity — will dominate their industries.

4 – The Best AI Products Will Learn From Every User Interaction

In 2026, the most successful AI products will build in continuous learning from user behavior. Much as Google’s search algorithm improved itself by learning which websites users actually clicked on, AI systems that capture feedback loops — like coding copilots do now when users accept or reject suggestions — will improve far faster than static models. Embedding these feedback loops into products will make increasingly complex use cases possible. Companies that take advantage of this continuous learning will gain compounding advantages.

5 – Enterprises Will Demand Quantified Reliability Before Scaling AI Agents

Business-critical AI applications require precise, measurable accuracy, not probabilistic answers. While consumer AI can afford to occasionally get things wrong, enterprise systems need exact answers to questions like “How much revenue did we generate yesterday?” In 2026, organizations will insist on systematic methods to measure the accuracy of agents before deploying them at scale, which will drive rapid innovation in sophisticated evaluation frameworks. Establishing these domain-specific testing standards will be essential for taking agentic AI from pilot projects to core business operations.

6 – Ideas, Not Execution, Will Become the AI Bottleneck

As AI agents handle more of the actual work of building and implementing projects, organizations will be limited by the quality of their ideas more than their ability to execute on them. This shift will be both liberating and daunting. It allows teams to rapidly prototype and deploy solutions that once took months, but success depends on asking the right questions and setting the right direction. In 2026, as execution becomes commoditized, strategic thinking and vision will separate high-performing organizations from the rest.

7 – Shadow AI Will Drive Enterprise Adoption from the Bottom Up

Employees who select their own free AI tools will remain the primary driver of enterprise AI adoption in 2026. Rather than waiting for IT departments to sanction approved products, workers are using ChatGPT, Claude, and other consumer AI tools for their daily work, forcing organizations to catch up with formal policies and infrastructure. Smart enterprises will recognize this grassroots adoption as a signal of what works and build their AI strategies around employee-proven use cases. The future of enterprise AI is being written by individual contributors, not by mandates from the top.

The Real AI Race Starts Now

The organizations that lead in 2026 won’t be those with the most AI pilots or the biggest technology budgets. They’ll be the ones that treat AI as a strategic discipline — building evaluation frameworks, establishing trust through verified accuracy, and empowering employees to use these systems effectively. The technology is ready. Enterprises must now deploy it responsibly at scale.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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Business

Florida congresswoman accused of stealing $5 million in COVID funds insists she’s innocent

Published

5 hours ago

December 29, 2025

Jace Porter

U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick reiterated her innocence Monday outside a Miami federal courthouse, where she faces charges of conspiring to steal $5 million in federal COVID-19 disaster funds.

Cherfilus-McCormick was scheduled to be arraigned, but her attorney requested the proceeding be rescheduled to Jan. 20 so that she could finalize her legal team. Prosecutors didn’t object, and Judge Lisette Reid agreed to the new date. The hearing lasted less than five minutes.

“I just want to make it very clear that I am innocent,” Cherfilus-McCormick said immediately after leaving court. “In no way did I steal any kind of funds. I’m committed to the people of Florida and my district.”

Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat, has pleaded not guilty. She is facing 15 federal counts that accuse her of stealing funds that had been overpaid to her family’s health care company, Trinity Healthcare Services, in 2021. The company had a contract to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Cherfilus-McCormick’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said the case involves mistakes that generally aren’t even misdemeanors, let alone felonies. He said he believes the case is politically motivated.

Cherfilus-McCormick was arrested in November and then freed on a $60,000 bond. In addition to bail, the judge said Cherfilus-McCormick must surrender her personal passport, and is allowed to travel only between Florida, Washington, D.C., Maryland and the Eastern District of Virginia.

She has been allowed to retain her congressional passport so she can perform certain duties for her job.

According to the federal indictment, prosecutors said that within two months of receiving the funds in 2021, more than $100,000 had been spent on a 3-carat yellow diamond ring for the congresswoman.

The health care company owned by Cherfilus-McCormick’s family had received payments through a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract, the indictment said. Her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, requested $50,000, but they mistakenly received $5 million and didn’t return the difference.

Prosecutors said the funds received by Trinity Healthcare were distributed to various accounts, including to friends and relatives who then donated to Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign for Congress.

Cherfilus-McCormick won a special election in January 2022 to represent Florida’s 20th District, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, after Rep. Alcee Hastings died in 2021.

The charges she faces include theft of government funds; making and receiving straw donor contributions; aiding and assisting a false and fraudulent statement on a tax return; money laundering, as well as conspiracy charges associated with each of those counts.

According to a previous statement provided by Cherfilus-McCormick’s chief of staff, she doesn’t plan to resign from office. She said she has cooperated with “every lawful request” and will continue to do so until the matter is resolved.

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Business

Trump says he still might fire Powell as Fed chair pick looms

Published

6 hours ago

December 29, 2025

Jace Porter

President Donald Trump teased that he has a preferred candidate to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve, but is in no hurry to make an announcement — while also musing that he might fire the central bank’s current leader, Jerome Powell.

“I do, still do — hasn’t changed,” Trump said at a press conference Monday, when asked if he has a favorite candidate. “I’ll announce him at the right time. There’s plenty of time.”

Trump added the Powell should resign and that he’d “love to fire him.”

“Maybe I still might,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump did not specify who is his leading chair candidate and said an announcement would be made in “January sometime.”

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has been seen as the frontrunner, though Trump has also expressed interest in former Fed governor Kevin Warsh. Other finalists in the process have included current Fed governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman and BlackRock’s Rick Rieder.

Earlier: Bessent Sees Room for a Future Revamp of the Fed’s 2% Target

Trump has made numerous cryptic — and sometimes contradictory — remarks about his decision-making process regarding the new central bank chief. The president earlier in December said he’d narrowed the pool of contenders down to one, but subsequently said he was considering multiple candidates and has heaped praise on several of the names on the short list.

Trump has long been a critic of Powell, who he picked to lead the central bank during his first term. The president has indicated he wants the next chair to more aggressively cut interest rates as the White House looks to lower mortgage costs.

He said Monday he was considering a “gross incompetence” lawsuit against Powell related to an ongoing renovation project at the Fed. Powell’s term as chair is set to end in May of 2026, but his term on the Fed’s Board of Governors doesn’t expire until 2028.

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Business

Trump claims victory in drug-smuggling crackdown, but key details remain a mystery

Published

6 hours ago

December 29, 2025

Jace Porter

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.

Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.”

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States. It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carried out by the military in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Trump declined to say if the U.S. military or the CIA carried out the latest strike or where it occurred. He did not confirm it happened in Venezuela.

“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.

Trump first referenced the strike on Friday, when he called radio host John Catsimatidis during a program on WABC radio and discussed the U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats. The attacks have killed at least 105 people in 29 known strikes since early September.

“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”

Trump did not offer any additional details in the interview.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or one of the U.S. military’s social media accounts has in the past typically announced every boat strike in a post on X, but there has been no post of any strike on a facility.

The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details. The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.

Trump for months has suggested he may conduct land strikes in South America, in Venezuela or possibly another country, and in recent weeks has been saying the U.S. would move beyond striking boats and would strike on land “soon.”

In October, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, built up military forces in the region, seized two oil tankers and pursued a third.

The Trump administration has said it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and seeking to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fairpublished this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro ‘cries uncle.’”

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