Published in The Daily Caller.
“The shape of AI’s trajectory will hinge on several factors in 2026: there’s the question of China’s development and use of AI, the possibility of an expanded AI regulation patchwork brought on by state legislators, and there’s the fact that the media has a penchant for only covering AI harms and omitting mention of AI benefits,” Kevin Frazier, an adjunct research fellow at the CATO Institute and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, told the DCNF. “Each of these factors may substantially alter the AI space.”
China has been attempting to dominate the global AI market in recent years. The country’s AI sector and related industries are projected to reach a market valued at $1.4 trillion by 2030, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis published in May 2025.
Frazier also added that some American workers may be choosing to remain at the same jobs amid rising “economic uncertainty” due to AI’s nationwide expansion.
“Still, AI is certainly compounding aspects of the labor market that predated generative AI,” Frazier told the DCNF. “We’re in the middle of a Great Freeze — this low fire, low hire environment has more folks staying put for longer in the same job and more firms settling for the status quo amid economic uncertainty. This is a bad trend for economic dynamism – a healthy economy involves a high rate of job mobility.”
Investments in AI have surged across the globe in recent years. An estimated $1.5 trillion was invested in AI globally in 2025, according to the World Economic Forum.
A Pew Research Center survey released in September 2025 found that 50% of Americanas were more worried than excited about increased AI usage in daily life, marking an increase from 37% in 2021. Meanwhile, 10% of respondents were more excited than concerned and 38% were equally excited and concerned, the survey shows.
“Whenever forecasting the likely impacts of a general purpose technology, it’s important to keep Amara’s Law in mind: we tend to overestimate short-term changes and underestimate long-term changes,” Frazier told the DCNF. “That’s why I think [AI’s impacts on the U.S. in] 2026 will look more or less like 2025. That said, a few nascent trends from last year will become more prominent in 2026.”