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Big Technology Podcast
Alex And Ranjan's 2026 Outlook: ChatGPT 1 Billion, AI Shopping, Apple's Big Year, AI Love Boom
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- [00:00]
Kevin Roose
Happy Holidays everyone. Ranjan, Roy and I are here to predict what's going to happen in 2026 and we'll do it on a special edition of Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition right after this.
- [00:11]
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- [00:53]
Kevin Roose
Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI. They already deployed one called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping using self reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks. It doesn't just help buyers find a car they love, it helps schedule a test drive, get pre approved for financing and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition of where this week we will predict what's going to happen in 2026. We have a short episode for you on the feed today, but we didn't want to leave you alone during the holiday season. We're here to do what ChatGPT will do over time. You know, provide some companionship and hopefully some giggles. And so for that we are going to spend the next 20 plus minutes sharing our predictions of what's going to happen in 2026. Let's begin by just trading some predictions. We both have about five that we want to go through. Let's see if we can go through them as fast as we can.
- [02:04]
Ranjan Roy
All right, my first one is, and this is the area where I work in, I think agentic AI, what it actually means is going to become real in 2026. I think in 2025 everyone said it, everyone had kind of this like vision of these. Like you know, you're stringing together blocks on a workflow. This RPA plus vision. And I think towards the end of the year, I started talking about this in July a bit and seeing it with my own. The company I work for, rytr. But like, and now we're seeing it in the way the ChatGpts of the world work. Even what agentic means for Gemini, the idea that you define a bunch of tools, you define a bunch of data and let the AI create that workflow itself. And I think it's going to expand into all parts of our life beyond enterprise. Like we. I remember a year ago you had been talking about, like, what is an agentic workflow? I want like, you know, and everyone. It always came back to travel booking and like, go book my flight for me. After doing a flight search, I think, like, people are going to start to. I've already, towards the, like the last half of this year started to actually identify parts of my life and I think, like, and people are going to be able to do this in a much bigger way next year.
- [03:21]
Kevin Roose
Okay, so you really believe in this technology being able to take that next leap.
- [03:24]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, to actually string together a bunch of different actions and do stuff for you. And we're going to. Everyone's going to start to see that next year.
- [03:31]
Kevin Roose
This will be fun because as we go through the year, I will remind you of this prediction and we'll see if it actually comes true. All right, here's mine. I'm going with my safest prediction first. ChatGPT hits a billion users and we know it's at 800 million now. I expect that it will hit a billion by April next year at the latest. And I think that's a real moment, I think, for the AI and OpenAI in general. There's not many products that have a billion users out there, and the fact that ChatGPT will become one of them is going to be a big moment. I think it'll be a marker of people saying, okay, this is real.
- [04:09]
Ranjan Roy
All right. I mean, they might do that by the end of this year, in the next week or so, at this point, at this stage. But, yeah, I think that's your safest prediction. I'm hoping that's the safest one. I want a little bit of a little fire in some of these predictions here.
- [04:28]
Kevin Roose
Okay. All right. The next one from you is a really fun one and I like that. So why don't you hit that?
- [04:34]
Ranjan Roy
I am going to buy a foldable phone. I'm going to say it here. I've been Hedging on it. God damn it. I'm going to buy a foldable phone. But I actually think they're going to have a real moment. And the reason I think that's exciting is the phone form factor has not evolved since the. Basically the original iPhone. I think it's been exciting and cameras got better. But what you hold in your hand all day and interact with some kind of meaningful innovation in that I think is a good thing. And the foldable phones are the first place I've seen that in a long time. I'm saying it here. I don't know which one I've been looking at, the Pixel Fold, the Samsung, but I'm going to get one.
- [05:16]
Kevin Roose
Yeah, I've been saying it on the show. My mantra around this is foldable phones. People with foldable phones look happy. It really is the case. They, like, unfold their phone on the airplane and they're like.
- [05:26]
Ranjan Roy
And they're just so happy.
- [05:27]
Kevin Roose
Life hack. But you don't think. You're pondering whether it will be Apple. But Apple is on schedule to release one this upcoming year, so why not wait?
- [05:39]
Ranjan Roy
Is it 2026? Okay, maybe I'll wait then. I will be unfolding my phone with a smile on my face in 2026.
- [05:48]
Kevin Roose
All right, good. Lead into my next prediction, which is Apple's gonna have an absolutely incredible year in 2026.
- [05:55]
Ranjan Roy
All right. Spicy Apple, Spicy.
- [05:59]
Kevin Roose
You know, we've bashed them a lot for good reason. They just haven't done a good job with AI. But they have something, the iPhone 17, which I just went out and picked up. It's a great phone. It really is good. I mean, some of the things you notice on it, the video's great, the audio processing is great. It's fast. The battery lasts a long time. Selfie mode is cool. Like, this is why people went out and got it. And that's why they're having. Wouldn't call it a super cycle, but a mini bump, you know, and. And I think they're going to ride that strength into the next year. They do not have a real competitor from an AI device, which seems like it's a couple of years off and then they're going to release their foldable phone, I think. I mean, you know, every year should be your best year ever if you're a public company. But without a doubt, I think 2026 will be Apple's best year ever. They're going to sell a ton of phones, they're going to add to that user base. They're going to price their foldable phone at $2,000. Everyone will love it. At least. At least maybe three May every people will pay it and they will be happy. They will smile and they will. They will love Apple for it.
- [07:03]
Ranjan Roy
Will Siri work better?
- [07:05]
Kevin Roose
No. No. But it's not going to matter.
- [07:07]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, I mean, we can't have it all. We can't have it all. All right, my next one, I actually changed this one up a bit. I think there's going to be major scandals and discomfort around recording or transcribing in public. And what I mean here is I've already started to see. I think I saw there's reporting that like on one of the cruise lines is banning meta ray bans. Everyone who uses tools like granola or other call transcription, like in 2025, everyone just kind of let it go as every word you're saying and everything you're doing around, like when you hold out a phone and record someone in public, they mostly know that you're doing that. Those kind of more subtle ways of kind of recording activity of people have been increasing in 2025 because AI is so good at actually making sense of it. I think there's going to be some major controversy, backlash around people and I think it's going to inform the whole world of AI devices that Sam and OpenAI and everyone else is talking about.
- [08:16]
Kevin Roose
Glass holes 2.0.
- [08:18]
Ranjan Roy
What?
- [08:19]
Kevin Roose
Glass holes 2.0.
- [08:20]
Ranjan Roy
Oh, glass holes 2.0. Wow. Glass holes. That's 2011 reference right there. Google Glass. Yeah. Yeah. I think and as a user and I love my meta ray bans, like and I try to be responsible with them and I'm not recording random people on the street. It's. At some point there is going to be, and you're already starting to see it, major backlash and I think it's going to happen next year.
- [08:44]
Kevin Roose
Okay. It's interesting how that jives with my next prediction, which is that there's going to be no AI device breakout in 2026. I don't think there's going to be. I think these. We're still in like the humane pin era and we are not moving to something that is going to be ubiquitous. And you know, the meta ray bans, you know, they are, they've been selling millions of these devices. I know, you know, when this episode drops, I'm going to be out in South America on a trip. I'm going to have those ray bans on my face. But anyway, I think that, I think that these things are just not there yet. And There's a lot of hype about them and we like to think about them. I still think the phone is powerful. It actually syncs with my belief that Apple's going to have a great year. Right. It's just like the phone's good and team phone, Ink phone. No AI. AI device breakout.
- [09:39]
Ranjan Roy
All right, I like that. And but if it does break out, my next prediction is that you will be shopping on an AI chatbot because I think AI shopping is going to become a real thing. I've actually OpenAI Their, their shopping like specifically trade model is actually pretty good. I've been using it more. I think people are going to get a lot more comfortable when you are buying your supplies for that hiking trip next year. You're just going to talk to ChatGPT or Gemini and it will go out, find the best price, order the package, tell you when, where it is. I think Amazon also is going to make some more interesting moves in this space versus Rufus, which is more passive. Amazon came out. Do you remember the Amazon dash? It was a button.
- [10:23]
Kevin Roose
Oh yes.
- [10:24]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah. It was a button that was tied to a specific brand or product that you just had to push and you would put it on your fridge. Like that whole mode of just like, I'm out of paper towels, just get this done for me. Like I don't want to go on Amazon find paper towels. Like all of that kind of shopping, I think moves to more of an AI first way next year.
- [10:46]
Kevin Roose
That's interesting. So if shopping does go inside these, these bots, it's actually a pretty sizable bump for like the functionality that they have in business case.
- [10:56]
Ranjan Roy
Yep, definitely. And Google puts them in a good position as well.
- [11:01]
Kevin Roose
All right, we're going to take a quick break and continue with our predictions after this. Again, just doing a brief episode, but glad to be here with you today. My next prediction is that we're going to have an AI love boom in 2026 and I'm going to tell you more about it right after this. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called chat concierge and it's simplifying car shopping using self reflect and layered reasoning with live API checks. It doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre approved for financing and estimate trade and value. Advanced, intuitive and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.
- [11:48]
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- [12:31]
Kevin Roose
And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition, predicting what's going to happen in 2026. I feel confident in our predictions so far and my next prediction is that we're going to see an AI love boom in 2026. I know in 2025 we had lots of interesting reporting about the companionship that people feel with these bots. We've tended to hear about it when it goes really bad. I don't think people are going to have come out of the woodwork yet, you know, talking about how deeply in love they are with their bot. But as this, as the functionality gets better, as memory increases and as personalization increases and as capacities increase and as helpfulness increases, I just, I think people en masse are going to fall in love or build or name AI as one of their, know, top five friends. I think that's definitely coming next year. And it does scare me, you know, to many degrees. But I just, I think it's happening.
- [13:38]
Ranjan Roy
Two questions. One, are you saying next year becomes the kind of inflection point, like when online dating went from like awkward and you didn't advertise it to. There's just the standard. Do you think next year is the inflection point where people just casually talk about their AI companions? It's like, oh my chatgpt was telling me this or you name them?
- [14:03]
Kevin Roose
Yeah, I think so. Look, I think that this is happening. This is also going back, going back to my conversation with Sam last week, I do think that there is this, you know, if not a stated preference, a revealed preference in the data that they're seeing that people really want to bond with their bots and maybe we Will have this. Yeah, you're right. An online dating moment where it goes from being taboo to say, I'm trying to find love by meeting strangers on the Internet. Maybe a similar breakthrough happens with online dating where people say, you know what, I don't need to use the Internet to find other people. I've actually decided that the Internet is that person.
- [14:45]
Ranjan Roy
All right, my second question. We had talked about this, I think like a year and a half ago. Do you need to go AI shopping for your AI love companion?
- [14:55]
Kevin Roose
What is that?
- [14:55]
Ranjan Roy
What?
- [14:55]
Kevin Roose
Basically, do you need to try out different relationships with different.
- [14:59]
Ranjan Roy
No, no, no. Do you have to buy gifts for your AI companion?
- [15:03]
Kevin Roose
Oh, well, shopping.
- [15:05]
Ranjan Roy
Remember we had talked about. I think it was what would an AI love companion want for. Oh, it was on Valentine's Day. That's right.
- [15:12]
Kevin Roose
That's why I think one of my favorite episodes we've done. Yeah, you're going to have to buy GIFs. You're going to have to, you know, offer it more compute. Maybe it will ask you to upgrade to the Pro version so you can have longer chats. You know, there are there with voice mode, for instance, there are limits to how much voice conversation you can have.
- [15:29]
Ranjan Roy
So what does your AI companion want for Valentine's Day? More compute. You know, move up the tier to GPT Pro.
- [15:37]
Kevin Roose
It's funny because it's lovely.
- [15:39]
Ranjan Roy
She only did or they. It only dates GPT Pro users. Not. Not GPT Plus.
- [15:46]
Kevin Roose
Well, it's one of those things where it's love language is quality time. But to spend quality time, you need gift giving. You need to buy that time.
- [15:54]
Ranjan Roy
Exactly. All right, that's a good one. I think my last one, I think 2026 is going to be both the best and worst year for AI. What I mean by that is I think we're going to see much more widespread adoption, major breakthroughs, but also I think the kind of like financial arrangements that have been built and kind of that infrastructure, especially the financial infrastructure, separate from the actual kind of like physical data infrastructure of a lot of the big players, I think takes a big hit next year. We're starting to see it with all these questions around Oracle, just in the last month and a half, we like those, all of those trades that just kind of ran as pure momentum this year, I think we're going to see a big washout.
- [16:43]
Kevin Roose
And is that. So what happens in that case? Like, if that's the case, and this is again, not investment advice, you know, if that washout happens, can the S&P 500 go up in 2026 or is that just like, does that mean that we just have a bad market year next year?
- [16:57]
Ranjan Roy
I think, I think we have a bad market year. I don't think we have a calamitous market year. But I do think like when it has been the single driver of like equity growth over the last two years or so, I think there, there's going to be some price to pay on that. I think like, and it also kind of, you know, not as a separate prediction, but I think like this also is going to significantly influence politics, the midterm elections. Like, as if you have kind of like flat equity growth, people uncertain about the economy, the Trump administration and others. And like a lot of people just still very strongly pushing AI as a just kind of general term. I think then you see more of a backlash to it, like overall as everyone is still falling in love with their AI companion. So I think you're going to have all these like weird forces kind of really pushing at each other. So that's why I say both its best and worst year.
- [17:58]
Kevin Roose
Who gets hit the hardest?
- [18:01]
Ranjan Roy
I think the oracles of the world are kind of the peripheral players who made AI such a big centerpiece when it wasn't kind of native or core to their business.
- [18:15]
Kevin Roose
Yeah, no, I mean we're just seeing that happen in real time.
- [18:18]
Ranjan Roy
It's. Yeah, that's not as much of a prediction here versus an observation at the market today. Yeah.
- [18:25]
Kevin Roose
Where do you think OpenAI is at the end of 2026?
- [18:29]
Ranjan Roy
I think a billion. I don't think. I think they're not the leader. I think. I think Gemini is. Google definitely starts to catch up. I think like everyone is biting off at different parts of the open AI empire, I guess if we call it that. But. But I don't think there's leader. I think they're still at a billion users. I think meta starts to maybe do something interesting on the consumer side. So you have like Microsoft, Google on enterprise, Google at consumer as well. Meta Consumer as well. Like at every level. I think they're going to be, they're going to be challenged in a bigger way next year.
- [19:09]
Kevin Roose
Is OpenAI a public company next year?
- [19:12]
Ranjan Roy
No, I don't think so. Do you?
- [19:14]
Kevin Roose
I don't think so either. No, that's another one of mine. No, OpenAI IPO in 2026.
- [19:20]
Ranjan Roy
Actually go ahead on that. I saw like a bunch of posts around how like the wealth creation in San Francisco because of the upcoming string of IPOs from the Anthropics and then Open a eyes of the world will be like unlike anything ever seen. Housing prices, etc. Etc. Do you think any of these companies are going to go IPO all the like, you know, 100 billion plus valuation companies?
- [19:49]
Kevin Roose
One of the things that I worry about is what happens when these chatbots and the public markets collide and what do market pressures do? And again like imagine just think about what the pressure to report quarterly earnings does in the middle of an AI love boom.
- [20:08]
Ranjan Roy
I mean that's good for quarterly earnings, right? As everyone is having to upgrade to GPT Pro because your companion is only Dating Pro users.
- [20:18]
Kevin Roose
But that's. I'm not saying the company's saying that.
- [20:20]
Ranjan Roy
On a public earnings call too.
- [20:22]
Kevin Roose
Oh my God. Yes, our dating business is going quite well. 100 million users have decided to become exclusive with no, but the truth is that that is the thing. It is. I'm not saying the companies will do it, but I worry that if you are, there will be pressure and there absolutely will be pressure to sort of turn that dial up and make things spicier, which there already is. There already there is. But there'll be public market pressure is a different beast. You know, you miss your quarter by a little bit or you make your quarter by a little bit. It's just what you do versus expectations and you know, you could be up or down a sizable percentage.
- [20:59]
Ranjan Roy
So. Yeah, okay.
- [21:00]
Kevin Roose
All right, here's my, here's my last one. And I'm curious what you think about this because this is the one I'm probably least sure about. But it is increasing AI model efficiency causes a crisis and we've seen some of this over the past couple weeks. Like Google's for for instance Google's new Flash model that like has they say has pro level performance at flash prices and speed. The thing that I really wonder about with this AI moment is let's say the bots get you know, about as good as as they can be with the with without requiring all this compute. And what happens then? I mean I guess there are. The pro AI argument would be like well, intelligence is now too too cheap to meter. So there's going to be a boom in productivity and all these things. I don't know is there?
- [21:50]
Ranjan Roy
Actually I think that feeds in perfectly with my AI has its best and worst year because that's exactly it that I think AI is going to be used by more people in more creative ways and interesting and productive ways. But that doesn't necessarily feed back to the current infrastructure and trade that's been built up around compute and data centers. And I think that fits in exactly. So I'm on board.
- [22:16]
Kevin Roose
Who is the company that has the best year, in your opinion? Big tech wise, next year.
- [22:26]
Ranjan Roy
I want to, like, come out and say something unexpected like Meta with AI, but I don't know, I'm still thinking it's probably Google.
- [22:36]
Kevin Roose
Oh, you just made me think of another one. Do you think Alexander Wang?
- [22:40]
Ranjan Roy
Pinterest.
- [22:41]
Kevin Roose
Pinterest, yeah.
- [22:42]
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- [22:42]
Kevin Roose
People love to pin. I think Alexander Wang survives.
- [22:45]
Ranjan Roy
Oh, that's a good one.
- [22:46]
Kevin Roose
You know, but at meta in, in 2026, do you think he makes it through?
- [22:50]
Ranjan Roy
No, I don't.
- [22:52]
Kevin Roose
That would be such a disaster for Meta, I think.
- [22:57]
Ranjan Roy
But I think Mark Zuckerberg, after the Metaverse, is going to be even more confident about cutting things that aren't working, I think, like they say, even again. I mean, I know he said, what was it like? We can lose like $100 billion dollars, but we still have to compete or whatever it was like. But I think I, I don't think he's gonna let things sit as long as they did. Just because you made a bet. It's not working.
- [23:23]
Kevin Roose
Yeah, I mean, there's enough stuff coming out of that place. You know, one report. Okay. But there's been multiple reports this year that, like, it's not really going well. I foreshadowed it on the show, so, you know, maybe that, that is, that will be the case and he'll be out. All right, Ron, John. All right, I, I will predict one last thing. We're gonna have a lot of fun talking about this stuff in 2026, so thank you again for being such a great podcast partner all through this year and I, I really look forward to our conversations every Friday. Thank you for the analysis and the insight and the fun that you bring to the show and looking forward to continuing.
- [24:03]
Ranjan Roy
It's the best way to end the week.
- [24:04]
Kevin Roose
I agree. All right, everybody, Happy New Year. Thank you for listening, thank you for watching and we will see you in 2026 on Big Technology podcast.
- [24:14]
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- [24:42]
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