2026 Predictions from Andrew Hewitt, TeamViewer’s DEX expert
ArticleBy Andrew Hewitt, Vice President Strategic Technology
Digital work has reached a turning point where technical performance directly shapes human performance. As AI becomes more autonomous and employee expectations rise, the next phase of digital employee experience will be defined by how well organizations balance automation, focus, and trust. In 2026, the companies that excel will be those that treat experience as core infrastructure — not an add-on — and use technology to remove friction, elevate focus, and empower people to do their best work.
Prediction: AI agents will explode across digital employee experience platforms
The Digital Employee Experience (DEX) market will see a massive proliferation of AI agents in 2026, marking a fundamental shift from AI that simply provides insights to AI that actually executes actions. Unlike current AI capabilities that summarize data and generate recommendations, these agents will have specific tasks to execute independently, that learn from their actions and adapt their approach over time. Initially, these agents will operate within individual vendor platforms – creating surveys, building automations and surfacing technical issues that employees never report. To take it a step further, by late 2026 and into 2027, we’ll see real change as agents start interacting with other agents outside of the vendor ecosystem, enabling truly comprehensive employee experience management.
Organizations should begin identifying use cases where AI agents can address the "silent sufferers" – the employees living with technology issues that service desks can't solve. They should start with internally-focused agents that can surface unreported IT issues and recommend – and eventually execute – fixes. Once that’s done, they should then start preparing infrastructure for cross-platform agent collaboration as the technology matures.
Prediction: The ability to focus on work will become the #1 competitive differentiator
Over the next decade, a company's ability to foster focus and eliminate distraction will become the single biggest competitive advantage. As digital friction continues to introduce constant interruptions into work environments, organizations that successfully create distraction-free experiences will discover whole new levels of creativity, innovation and productivity from their workforce. This isn't just about efficiency gains – it's about enabling employees to enter flow states and produce truly differentiated work. Meanwhile, companies that ignore digital friction will see their competitive edge erode as employees spend more time troubleshooting technology than doing the work they were hired to perform.
Leaders must reframe digital friction as a strategic priority, not just an IT operations issue. They should start measuring the actual cost of distraction in their environment and establish visibility into what's causing friction across devices, applications, and workflows. The organizations that come out on top will be those that recognized early that human focus is an incredibly valuable resource.
Prediction: IT workers will become managers of AI agents, not administrators of systems
The fundamental nature of IT roles will transform as automation eliminates most manual, repetitive tasks. Starting in 2026 – and within the next few years – IT professionals will shift from being Windows administrators or help desk technicians to becoming managers of AI agent teams, where their direct reports are autonomous AI systems rather than humans. This requires an entirely new skill set centered on human-to-machine interaction – overseeing agent performance, training AI on organizational nuances and ensuring agents operate within appropriate boundaries. Organizations must embrace the philosophy that "if you're not trying to automate yourself out of your job, you're not pushing hard enough," creating psychological safety that rewards automation rather than punishing it with job loss.
IT leaders should begin retraining programs now that focus on AI oversight, prompt engineering and agent management rather than traditional technical administration. Create pathways for current IT staff to transition into these higher-value roles – either as AI agent managers or as white-glove service partners who provide the human empathy and business partnership that automation cannot replace. The key is making this transition feel like an opportunity rather than a threat.
Prediction: DEX will become embedded infrastructure, with European regulations leading the way
Digital employee experience management will be as fundamental to IT operations as security or compliance, with data-driven decision-making becoming standard practice rather than a competitive differentiator. This standardization will be accelerated by emerging regulatory frameworks, particularly the NEN 8038 certification from the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute, which places greater pressure on chief information officers to deliver positive digital experiences for employees. While regulatory impact will be strongest in Europe initially, the business case for DEX will drive global adoption. Every organization will use DEX capabilities in some form, whether through standalone enterprise platforms or integrated features in endpoint management tools for smaller companies.
Organizations should stop viewing DEX as optional or experimental and treat it as essential infrastructure. Begin establishing baseline experience metrics now, implement data collection across your environment, and prepare for a future where experience-level agreements carry the same weight as service-level agreements. The question isn't whether your organization will adopt DEX, but whether you'll be leading or lagging when it becomes table stakes.
