The IFS company identifies 2026 as the year in which industrial AI will definitively move “from digitalization to intelligence and from intelligence to autonomy”; After 2025 marked a global turning point, generative AI has established itself in everyday life. In this process, the role of hybrid teams will be increasingly relevant to move AI from the digital environment to the physical world.
But its greatest transformation is discreetly reaching key sectors of the physical world – such as aerospace and defense, utilities, manufacturing, construction or telecommunications – where it is already moving from experiment to action. In these environments, hybrid teams are emerging as the dominant operating model to combine human knowledge and intelligent automation.
In this context, IFS highlights a key fact: 70% of the global workforce does not work behind a desk, and AI designed for these professionals is accelerating the transition towards autonomous, predictive and real-time operations, supported by hybrid teams capable of acting in the field.
Looking ahead to 2026, the question will no longer be whether AI is adopted, but how quickly it is integrated into day-to-day operations once the testing phase has passed, especially in organizations that opt for hybrid teams that are well integrated into their processes.
Hybrid teams of people and AI agents
Among the main trends, the rise of hybrid teams stands out, where people and specialized AI agents will work “side by side.” In these hybrid teams, routine tasks—such as data entry, reporting, or documentation—will be handed over to intelligent systems, while professionals will focus on higher-value functions: managing exceptions, applying judgment, ethical supervision, and making strategic decisions.
“This new model of hybrid teams will promote emerging professional profiles and will require redesigning processes and reinforcing training, in addition to technology. It will also accelerate the arrival of physical AI, with more robots in industrial environments,” explains Christian Pederson, CPO of IFS.
Along these lines, in the construction and engineering sector, IFS points to an accelerated modernization of business systems to support increasingly distributed hybrid teams. “Two-thirds of companies in the sector are advancing their ERP upgrade plans and the sector is expected to become one of the most AI-oriented industries next year,” they say.
Industrial AI improves business control by automating the collection and analysis of key project data – profitability, deadlines, costs, safety and quality -, facilitating the work of hybrid teams, reducing risks and improving results.
According to the IFS study, its main uses today are project execution (62%) and business intelligence (59%). Among companies that already apply it using hybrid equipment, 89% say that it has increased their profitability, in addition to improving efficiency and reducing costs.
IFS predicts that AI-based operations and hybrid equipment will be fundamental to the sector’s daily functions in 2030, with adoption of up to 70% in developed markets.
Increase in energy consumption associated with AI
The integration of AI is increasing energy consumption and, thereby, accelerating sustainability initiatives such as carbon emissions monitoring, a key challenge for hybrid teams that manage critical infrastructures.
In the energy sector, the growth of data centers and electric vehicles drives investment in clean energy, modular reactors and geothermal energy, while utilities incorporate IoT and smart grids to optimize generation and distribution with the support of hybrid equipment.
In telecommunications, where energy is one of the main operating costs, improving efficiency can mean savings of tens of millions of euros per year without affecting the user experience, something key given the increase in AI workloads at the edge and in the network managed by hybrid equipment.
IFS predicts that AI-based operations and hybrid equipment will be essential for the sector’s daily functions in 2030
A good example of this is Vodafone UK and Ericsson, who have managed to reduce daily consumption by up to 33% in some 5G sites in London through AI/ML solutions, and in low demand hours the savings reach up to 70% with no impact on the user.
With all this, IFS points out that AI will cease to be a “function” and become an “invisible and standard layer of industrial operation, where hybrid teams will be the core of execution. In this new stage, the competitive advantage will not be “using AI”, but rather ensuring that hybrid teams improve performance efficiently, freeing people to focus on decisions, not data.
