By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
As is the custom for many organisations and thought-leaders, we’re happy to offer WiFi NOW’s view of what is likely to happen in 2026. Some of it has been mentioned before and is relatively predictable, but some of it is not. One thing is for sure: Wi-Fi may be a maturing industry with steady as opposed to explosive growth but its importance will never wane – on the contrary. And we’re announcing some big plans for 2026!
AI gets real. But real AI has little to do with robots.
AI is of course the home of trillion-dollar valuations – and it’s important for Wi-Fi too, although we generally believe that such valuations are destined to crash. Wi-Fi is an excellent example – perhaps one of the best – of the tangible value of AI: Delivering better connectivity. We’re not big believers in generalised human robots and autonomous everything (we doubt that it will work and btw we don’t much believe in quantum computing either, excuse us for being Luddites in these respects) but certainly AI will continue to inject intelligence into the creation of the best user experience for connectivity.
AI will reside at the edge and of course most Wi-Fi chipset platforms already include such capabilities. While Agentic AI has a long, long way to go (and may realistically not happen any time soon) AI as applied to QoE is already here and we’ll see more applications of this in 2026. We will also begin to see a more structured approach to data within Wi-Fi standardisation in order to establish more and better streams of data to serve AI/ML engines. LLM will become common as the human interface in AIOps.
Don’t forget that Wi-Fi is arguably more important to AI that AI is to Wi-Fi. Why? Because Wi-Fi delivers the data that AI needs and without it, there’s really no AI at all. Meanwhile everyone should be keenly aware that AI is a two-way street and that the right to personal privacy is a basic right and must always be protected. Never forget that technology is here to serve and enrich us, not to control us.
QoE will become the true measure of everything Wi-Fi
The quest for great QoE has been going on for a decade or more but contrary to what you might think, the awareness of great QoE as the ultimate goal of providing services (including Wi-Fi) is not ubiquitous. In 2026 we will see the drive towards excellent home broadband QoE to continue with force and it will gain wider acceptance and adoption. Remote Wi-Fi quality management comes in many flavours – which is great for competition and innovation – while the industry is beginning to congeal around open source platforms as its starting point. And that’s a good thing.
Even within enterprise Wi-Fi (which has historically had many tools available to ensure quality) QoE will take on new meaning as quality probes and remote optimisation as well as QoE measurements of various kinds will flourish. In other words: Businesses will demand more connectivity quality for their investments, especially as qualified IT human resources (not everyone can be replaced by AI) continue to become more scarce and more costly. Those who can deliver QoE will gain a competitive advantage. The emergence of the push for QoE within the enterprise will also have important implications for ‘Wi-Fi offload’ (see below).
So here’s a question for the ages: If people seriously believe that AI will replace humans, will humans then stop enrolling in training for IT professionals because that would ostensibly be a waste of time and money – because their careers would be doomed anyway? I certainly hope not. But don’t forget that the world is driven mostly not by what happens in outer reality but by the ideas in people’s minds. So be careful what you think. It might come true one way or the other.
Talk (and demonstrations) of Wi-Fi 8 will intensify
We’re already off to the races with Wi-Fi 8 and we’re a little on the fence as to whether this is a good thing or not. Realistically, there will be no Wi-Fi 8 for a couple of years (at least no substantial commercial ecosystem) and frankly, there shouldn’t be because we’re far from done with Wi-Fi 7 adoption (although growth in shipments are on track to exceed that of previous standards). Wi-Fi 7 still has a ton of connectivity value to add and talk of Wi-Fi 8 may delay current upgrade decisions among major end users.
On the other hand innovation and opportunity is the life blood of the industry, even when it arguably arrives a little early so of course we’re doing our part to support it. In 2026 we will see the narrative on Wi-Fi 8 expand and solidify as the view of the new standard evolves. Above all Wi-Fi 8 – as is the case with every new standard – is an opportunity for vendors to position themselves forcefully and even for newcomers to take a bite out of various market segments, including – for example – RF components.
Wi-Fi ‘offload’ will be a major success story of 2026
There’s no getting around it: Wi-Fi ‘offload’ (yes, it’s a bad name) is here to stay as mobile operators have long since grown sour on spending hundreds of millions of dollars on DAS for indoor coverage. They’re simply not going to do that any more despite the fact that indoor 5G coverage continues to be a real and nagging issue. Instead indoor mobile data services will increasingly run on Wi-Fi and companies enabling gapless auto-connect to Wi-Fi at venues of all kinds will see significant expansions in 2026, which also means that the entire enterprise Wi-Fi industry will benefit.
‘Offload’ will finally begin to be recognised as the low-cost solution to ubiquitous indoor mobile coverage, especially in the US. The Passpoint standard will be critical but there will be various flavours of ‘offload’ services. OpenRoaming – and we support it – is a good one but it may not be the best fit for everyone and as always, innovation and competition is key to making ‘offload’ happen everywhere.
The spectrum battle in Europe intensifies. China could deliver a surprise
As the horrendous prospect of Europe reserving the top 6 GHz band to IMT (mobile) approaches, we believe the battle is far from over. Too many European businesses – many of them very large and influential – will suffer immensely under such a decision. In 2026 this battle will intensify and hopefull the European Union will come to its senses. Meanwhile, we think there’s a non-zero probability that China may come out in support of a new unlicensed policy for the 6 GHz band in China. Chinese consumers and businesses know that they’re being short-changed and rumblings have been heard.
Wi-Fi HaLow continues to expand and grow
Wi-Fi HaLow keeps winning WiFi NOW Awards – and for good reason. Wi-Fi HaLow is the no-brainer wireless technology of choice to connect anything that needs less than a few tens of Mbps at range, and by far most devices don’t need more than that if you including the sum total of Wi-Fi-capable devices out there. We’ve supported Wi-Fi HaLow for a decade and we will continue to do so. We’re delighted that more and more people are now understanding its value and that the ecosystem has begun to thrive. It will never be a fast transition but its value is undeniable and it will prevail. The Wi-Fi HaLow Global Summit will once again be part of our Wi-Fi World Congress in Mountain View this April 13-15.
Ultra-Wideband location & asset tracking begins to take hold
UWB is one of the more exciting wireless technologies to emerge in recent years and its entry into the Wi-Fi industry as a ‘sister technology’ holds enormous promise. UWB’s asset tracking and location use cases are exceptionally accurate, low cost, and integrate perfectly into enterprise Wi-Fi networks.
The result is the opening up of numerous new service opportunities in industry and for venues everywhere. In 2026 we may even see the first UWB-based popular wayfinding applications reach the mass market. We’ll have a lot more to say about UWB at our Wi-Fi World Congress in Mountain View on April 13 when we conduct the first ever (as far as we know) open UWB Global Summit.
Wi-Fi IoT continues to be a growth segment to watch
The wireless IoT market is best described as fragmented, unruly, sprawling – but it is also a true growth opportunity for the Wi-Fi industry. Two segments stand out: Ultra-low power – meaning Wi-Fi connectivity for battery-operated devices – and IoT incorporating AI at the edge. In raw numbers, Wi-Fi IoT is growing by the hundreds of millions of devices and we even believe that Wi-Fi IoT may take a bite out of the Bluetooth IoT market because let’s face it, anything Bluetooth can do Wi-Fi does better. Matter will continue to be an important component in the expansion of the Wi-Fi IoT market.
Our plans for 2026:
Wi-Fi World Congresses in Mountain View, CA and Zürich, SwitzerlandWe’re full steam ahead for WWC Mountain View April 13 -15 – and we’ve just announced that our EMEA event this year will take place in beautiful and dynamic Zürich, Switzerland on September 28-30. Switzerland continues to be a remarkable growth story in Europe and we look forward to continuing our relationships with both international and Swiss companies for our second Swiss WWC event following WWC Geneva in 2024. Contact us immediately if you’re interested in a starring role at either!
/Claus.
