A woman went to visit a fortune teller. In a dark, hazy room, the oracle gazed into a crystal ball. Her eyes went white, and in a hollow voice the seer said, “Prepare to be a widow. Your husband will die a violent and horrible death this year.”

Upset, the woman stared into the fortune teller’s face. She looked down at her hands, which were shaking. After a few deep breaths, she composed herself and asked a question.

“Will the jury convict me?”

We're not quite at the three week mark for 2026, so this newsletter is still within the allowable window for a list of predictions. I checked the newsletter laws and it's in there. Please believe me. Keeping in line with the themes of this newsletter, the five predictions will focus on "games, books, interviewing, accessibility, and tech in general" with a bonus prediction at the end.

Making predictions and telling people about them is an easy path to embarrassment. If your predictions turn out wrong, there's a record of just how incorrect your thinking was. When you're right, the predictions end up seeming obvious in hindsight. The value in making predictions is the same as making plans. The important part is the thought that goes into crafting the predictions. At Amazon, employees write a lot of documents. It's how people explain their ideas and build consensus. It's often said by Amazon leadership that the value of a document isn't in the document itself, but in the thought and discussion that goes into writing the document and iterating to its final form. Predicting the future is similar. It's not the final prediction that's important, it's the research, thought, and learning that goes into making the prediction.

Previously, I wrote about my goals for 2026. The predictions this week are what I think is going to affect you and the rest of the world. They're things to watch out for and to take into account when doing your own planning. You're welcome.

In 2026, accessibility becomes a competitive advantage. Historically, businesses treat supporting customers with disabilities as a cost center. It's something that needs to be done to meet compliance and avoid fines. Legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and more recently the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has forced companies to meet a minimum bar. The EAA went into effect in the middle of last year but there have only been a few enforcement actions. The ones we have seen have been for European companies. Specifically, grocery stores in France whose online shopping experiences weren't accessible.

Grocery stores being the first enforcement target makes sense. Being able to buy food is a non-negotiable and obvious activity that everyone needs to participate in, regardless of ability or disability. I imagine the argument for compliance in these cases was an easy one to make in court. We haven't seen a lot of other enforcement yet, but I'm sure regulators are sharpening their pencils as they look for other fish to fry.

Already being accessible ensures business continuity by allowing companies to avoid the distraction of regulatory hits and concentrate on their other investments. More importantly, companies leaning into accessibility this year will gain a larger share of the estimated $13 trillion controlled by people with disabilities and their households. Businesses will improve their accessibility support not just by improving their online and in-person shopping experiences, but also by increasing accessibility representation in their advertising and improving access to customer service.

Games are going to be released with AI built into them, mostly for features relating to tutorials and instructions. Eyeballs and attention matter. If people are swapping to other windows to look up hints, tricks, and tips they're leaving the game and breaking immersion. If they're getting stuck at difficult or confusing sections, they might abandon the game for something less frustrating. Thoughtfully integrating AI into video game experiences will keep people in the game.

On the development side, AI usage will grow as an acceptable tool used to make games. Right now, companies that are caught using AI to make their video games face online backlash. This year, consumer sentiment will start catching up with the reality that AI is here to stay. Companies that use AI to make their products will realize the online noise doesn't have an effect on their sales.

There will certainly be bad games made using AI just like there are bad games made by people not using AI. Consumers care more about the quality of the end product than they do about how it was made or whether it's good for society or the planet. For decades, this consumer behavior has held true for cheap clothes, gas powered cars and salty sweet snacks. Game consumers are going to play the games they think are fun regardless of whether AI was used to make them. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, just the way it is. An artist losing their job isn't going to turn anyone off the next Battlefield release. Consumers don't care when people lose their video game jobs through layoffs, and they won't care if the jobs are replaced with AI, either. We'll know this prediction is coming true as game storefronts like Steam stop requiring disclosures around the use of AI in a game's development.

Books are going to be big in 2026. Not in terms of more people reading them, but because we're going to see more stories that started out as books moving to other mediums.

2025 wasn't a great year for original movie ideas. Eight of the top ten highest grossing movies were sequels or remakes. This trend will continue for movies, but other content creators are going to get the memo. Streaming channels will catch on that drawing on the already developed stories and characters from books taps into pre-existing audiences and increases viewership.

Half of the top 10 movies in 2025 could be traced back to a novel or written story, compared to only two in the top ten network/streamed shows. From movies to television and streaming, the hottest media in 2026 will come from the written word. It will be a good time for authors with large fan bases, but not so good for screenwriters trying to sell original screenplays.

In 2026, AI starts getting used during interviews by interviewers. Right now AI's impact in hiring is mostly by recruiters evaluating applications, and by candidates using AI to massage their resumes, mass apply to hundreds of jobs, and cheat on programming tests. 2026 will see candidates getting asked how they use AI and to prove their facility with AI-powered coding tools. This won't be just for software engineers. Jobs like data scientists, product managers, social media managers and journalists (anyone who writes or who manipulates data) will all start having to prove they can use AI in their jobs.

The biggest change will be for software engineers who will be asked to use AI tools during interviews. Right now candidates who are asked to prove they know how to code are either writing code by hand, or they are using AI powered cheating tools. The current way we conduct programming tests with algorithm focused problems isn't great. It's a valid criticism that it doesn't test the day to day things you do as a computer programmer. But it's far better than the interviewing techniques of the 90s and early 2000s where candidates were commonly asked brain teaser questions like, "How would you move Mount Fuji?" and "Why are sewer covers round?" With tech companies eager to hire engineers with facility in AI powered tools, companies will start testing for this ability in every new hire.

There are only 16 other countries older than the United States of America and this year it will celebrate its 250th anniversary. As US citizens celebrate this milestone, the rest of the world will continue its slow disarticulation from us. The US will see less tourism, fewer imports, and less appetite for our exports as our historical global partners realize they can't rely on us and make deals with more reliable partners.

The good news is the US is largely self sufficient due to being energy and food independent. We don't actually need to ally with anyone to keep ourselves alive. But we do like our comforts. As other countries build new alliances and trade partnerships, the US will see higher prices and fewer luxuries on store shelves. Expect inflation to continue and shock to register as US citizens realize that staples like olive oil mostly come from Europe, and that Europe doesn't trust us anymore.

There are my five predictions for 2026. We'll check back at the end of the year to see which come true. I'd also love to hear about your predictions for 2026. What shifts do you see coming in games, books, interviewing, accessibility, and tech?

For more information related to the predictions, check out these links.

Bards attribute the creation of the dragonflyclops to the wizard Altheryx Vane. Obsessed with creating a swarm of beautifully precise weapons, he built upon the aerial agility of insects and granted them destructive, arcane eye-beams. He believed such creatures would serve as the ultimate guardians for his remote tower. Through alchemical rituals he succeeded beyond expectation, crafting multi-colored variants attuned to different destructive forces.

As always, you can find more on the Dragonflyclops for free over on Patreon.

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