I was wrong about Elon. But he was wrong too

“Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions,” the newspaper reported.

Tesla’s eight-person board, which is chaired by Australian businesswoman Robyn Denholm, denied the accuracy of that report and ultimately went the other way. They issued Musk the largest CEO pay deal ever – a stock-based compensation plan that could be worth close to $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) over roughly a decade – a move designed to keep Musk focused on Tesla rather than shifting his attention elsewhere.

So, I maintain that I was on the money with my prediction that Elon’s controversies, distractions and workload were unsustainable. But he didn’t quit Tesla.

What about my other predictions?

Virtual reality having another year of unfulfilled promise, seems largely accurate. By Apple’s usual standards, sales of its $5999 Vision Pro VR headsets have clearly fallen short of expectations, with the company reportedly selling hundreds of thousands fewer than it had anticipated. Tick.

I predicted crypto would soar and bitcoin would surpass $US200,000 – wrong there – and my prediction of an ‘AI winter’ beginning was also off, with AI stocks like Nvidia and others staying hot. Flying cars have also not taken off. They remain decidedly grounded.

Some of my other stray predictions seem spot on. It’s early days, but Australia’s teen social media ban has indeed been largely successful so far, with other countries taking notice, and Trump’s tariffs have hit electronics prices. There was no major AI deepfake reported in Australia’s federal election, however.

Here are seven predictions for 2026. I’ll probably get half of them wrong. But the fun is in the guessing.

Australia gets its first major homegrown AI scandal

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The ingredients are all there. Government agencies are rushing to deploy AI for “efficiency.” Corporations are automating decisions about loans, insurance, hiring, and welfare. And Australia’s track record on algorithmic accountability – Robodebt, anyone? – suggests the guardrails aren’t up to the task.

The scandal could take several forms: a Services Australia AI that wrongly denies benefits to thousands of vulnerable people; a major employer’s hiring algorithm found to systematically discriminate; a health insurer using AI to deny claims based on race or income … AI will inevitably stuff up somewhere, the only question is which sector gets caught first.

Meta’s ‘smart glasses’ are a hit, haters be damned

Remember how everyone mocked Google Glass? Meta’s smart glasses are proving that the tech industry’s first instinct – wear a computer on your face – wasn’t wrong, just premature.

The difference is in form factor and social acceptability. These actually look like normal sunglasses. You don’t look like a tech bro uberdork wearing them to the pub. And with AI features built in, they’re genuinely useful: real-time translation, object identification (ask them: ‘What am I looking at?’), hands-free messaging, and navigation that doesn’t require you to stare at your phone while walking into traffic.

The 2026 iteration will likely add a subtle heads-up display, and that’s when things get interesting. Apple is reportedly working on its own version, which will legitimise the category further.

This won’t be VR-style hype, it’ll be more of a slow burn. But by year’s end, smart glasses will be the wearable that actually sticks, succeeding where VR flopped.

China wins Australia’s EV war

BYD already outsells Tesla in Australia in some months, and that’s just the beginning. The Chinese manufacturer – along with MG, GWM, and newcomers like Zeekr and Xiaomi – are flooding the market with competent, affordable EVs that legacy carmakers simply can’t match on price.

Australia seems uniquely vulnerable to some of these dynamics: we have no local car manufacturing left, and consumers are historically happy to buy whatever’s cheapest. Tesla’s brand remains politically toxic to some buyers thanks to Musk’s antics, and Ford and Toyota are still playing catch-up when it comes to EVs at scale. By the end of 2026, Chinese manufacturers will command between 30 and 40 per cent of Australia’s EV market, and nobody in Canberra will quite know what to do about it.

Nvidia’s reign ends

Nvidia has been the undisputed king of the AI boom. Its processors are the pickaxes in a gold rush that sent its market cap past $US3 trillion. But 2026 is when gravity reasserts itself. Giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are all developing custom AI chips to reduce their dependency on Nvidia, whose sky-high share price has long seemed almost impossible to justify.

Critically, the AI infrastructure spending spree can’t continue at this rate forever. At some point, companies need to see returns. This doesn’t mean that Nvidia becomes irrelevant. It just means that its era of unquestioned dominance – and its title as the Most Important Company In The World – ends in 2026.

Quantum computing has its ChatGPT moment

Quantum computing has been ‘five years away’ for every year I’ve been reporting on the industry. But Google’s Willow chip and IBM’s steady progress on error correction suggest we’re approaching a genuine inflection point.

The breakthrough won’t be quantum computers replacing your laptop. It’ll be a clear demonstration of quantum advantage on a problem that actually matters: think simulating a molecule for drug discovery, or cracking an encryption protocol (which will terrify everyone). When it happens, every CEO will suddenly need a ‘quantum strategy’ and start-ups will raise billions on pitch decks that don’t make sense.

Most of the hype will be largely premature, just as it was with AI in 2023, but the narrative will shift permanently. Quantum will go from ‘interesting science experiment’ to ‘inevitable technology disruption’ next year.

A major Australian bank gets breached

After Optus, Medibank, Latitude, and a parade of smaller breaches, the statistical reality is grim: Australia’s big four banks are operating on borrowed time.

They’re attractive targets: massive repositories of sensitive financial data, legacy systems that are barely held together and complex supply chains with countless potential entry points. Australia’s banks have invested heavily in security, but so have every other company that’s been breached. It only takes one missed patch, one phished employee, or one compromised vendor for the worst to happen.

And when it does happen, the fallout will be nuclear. Banking data is more sensitive than telco records. The political response will be severe, potentially including personal liability for executives and board members who failed to prioritise security, and regulators like APRA may come into the firing line.

The silver lining is that it might be the shock that forces an overhaul of Australia’s approach to cybersecurity, from mandatory breach disclosure timelines to more severe penalties for negligence.

Canva IPOs – and stuns Wall Street

The Melanie Perkins-led company times its listing perfectly, riding renewed appetite for profitable tech. Its AI design tools are a moat rather than a commodity, and enterprise adoption accelerates as marketing teams ditch expensive Adobe subscriptions.

The blockbuster public listing on New York’s Nasdaq becomes Australia’s biggest tech success story in history, finally putting Sydney and Australia on the map as a serious global tech hub. Hundreds of new millionaires – many of whom are the company’s early employees – are minted in the process, unlocking a tidal wave of capital.

Stray predictions

An AI-written song tops the charts; a prominent Australian influencer is exposed as largely AI-generated; Google’s search dominance faces its first real threat in decades.