2026 Predictions: AI Automates Knowledge Work, Autonomous Robots & AI CEO Billionaires | EP #217

Peter Diamandis (0:00)

Hey, everybody, welcome to Moonshots. We have a special end of the year holiday episode for you with our 2026 predictions from the Moonshot mates.

Dave Blundin (0:07)

You must have inside scoop on this.

Peter Diamandis (0:08)

We'll find out, won't we?

Salim Ismail (0:10)

He's got a Santa hat on. You got to take them seriously.

Peter Diamandis (0:13)

Perfecting orbital refueling, getting ready for the-

Salim Ismail (0:16)

We're already leaking the prediction. You're already-

Peter Diamandis (0:18)

No, no, no, I'm just, I'm just correct.

Emad Mostaque (0:21)

It's been six minutes.

Peter Diamandis (0:22)

I can generate, you know, a few dozen Peterbots and have them attend the meetings instead of me.

Dave Blundin (0:29)

A gold star to the first fan who gets their spouse or significant other fooled by this during 2026 Send in the video. Don't cheat.

Salim Ismail (0:37)

I push back on the robots side just a bit, but-

Peter Diamandis (0:41)

You hate the robots.

Salim Ismail (0:42)

I know. I started with that.

Peter Diamandis (0:43)

2026 is going to feel like the future.

Alexander Wissner-Gross (0:46)

This year didn't feel like the future to you?

Peter Diamandis (0:48)

It felt like the future, but next year is going to feel more like the future.

Dave Blundin (0:54)

Now that's the Moonshot, ladies and gentlemen.

Peter Diamandis (0:59)

Now, over to you guys.

Dave Blundin (1:01)

Got so much changed this year. Next year is going to be, you know, what orders of magnitude more change. And so a real challenge to narrow it down to just a couple of things. So everybody had what five, six, seven great predictions and the team here whittled it down to the two most impactful. So that's what we're going to go through.

Peter Diamandis (1:18)

Yeah, fantastic. Emad?

Emad Mostaque (1:21)

Yeah, I think that 2025 has been a real gift with the acceleration that we've seen. And next year is the year of real takeoff. It's tough doing the predictions because a lot of these things are inevitable. But it seems like the future is coming even closer. And so it's super exciting to see what's going to come.

Peter Diamandis (1:35)

Love it. Salim?

Salim Ismail (1:37)

I think 2026 is the year that everybody wakes up to this acceleration. And I think Dave made the point that you could ignore it up till now, but you can't ignore it going forward. And I think that's the biggest change we'll see in the world, is people go, holy crap, this is happening.

Peter Diamandis (1:54)

Okay. Alex?

Alexander Wissner-Gross (1:56)

Welcome to the Singularity. The year 2025 is now ending. The year 2026 is about to begin. It's not a point in time. It's not a distant vertical mountain on the horizon. It's a process. And right here at the end of 2025, in the midst of the Singularity, space-time is feeling perfectly flat.

Peter Diamandis (2:19)

And as I like to say, it's coming faster and faster. So don't blink. All right, let's jump in to our 2026 predictions. So guys, here's the deal. I mean, you guys all submitted incredibly good 2026 predictions. I mean, some of you had like four or five amazing ones, and cutting them down to two each was like the most difficult problem I had this morning. So, anyway.

Dave Blundin (2:40)

So far at 5:30 a.m., that's the hardest thing you've done all day.

Peter Diamandis (2:43)

Yeah.

Alexander Wissner-Gross (2:44)

I thought the consensus was that compression is the root of intelligence.

Peter Diamandis (2:47)

Yeah. Listen, I don't know, you guys obviously did not get the memo about the Santa hats, but...

Salim Ismail (2:56)

Yeah. Where was that? We missed that memo.

Peter Diamandis (2:58)

Well, hey...

Alexander Wissner-Gross (2:59)

The Coca-Cola company thanks you, Peter.

Peter Diamandis (3:01)

Yeah. I think we should get going. What do you think?

Dave Blundin (3:08)

Let's predict. I can't wait.

Peter Diamandis (3:09)

Yeah. So, all right. Let's get this show on the road.

So, here's the deal. Here's the rules of the competition. These are our 2026 predictions for our Moonshot mates. We have Emad, AWG, Salim, DB2, myself. We get two each. Really hard, because everybody put in incredibly good ones. It's a minute to pitch it. Three or four minutes of commentary questions or additions. And we're going to do this one tight and fast. And, yeah, I think it's time to jump in.

Dave Blundin (3:46)

The team behind the scenes cut it down, too. We do not actually know what made the final selection.

Peter Diamandis (3:52)

You don't know. And the order you don't know. But I'm going to kick it off just to sort of model this.