USTD Newsletter Jan 2026
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UsTcCH 0 GI Tal — JANUARY 2026 —_— 2026: THE YEAR THE . . 2026 is here, and with it, the world of business faces h A 23 I. its greatest reset yet. After years of Al hype, reality is : | . setting in—investors are recalibrating, enterprises - TT are rethinking adoption, and the rules of digital q » A) - transformation are being rewritten. ’ PY Na, : I RY 7 Bad In this edition, we explore the Great Financial Reset, + §v 489, od pragmatic Al strategies, critical IT decisions for 2026, N Zh v Lay and the emerging “phygital” future of publishing. - { ¥ Buckle up—this is the year the world changed. M Pog ) » = | ATTN) © v aN ’ ) nr o = y pers ’ E /" (Rescarct == ¢scarc SIE 7; SRE - “Phygital-How the world of publishing is being transformed 2026 will be remembered as the Managing Sow - by AL” In this deep-dive report, year of the greatest financial Statement of Work contracting we explore the changing reset—it 2023 was Al hype, 2026 in IT is booming. But how do landscape of what the printing is reality for investors. you get the best results? industry describes as ‘liquid publishing.’ (written by lan C. Tomlin) (written by Theepika Devaraj) STRUGGLING WITH HOW DO You YOUR WORK FOR Y¢ The Big Decisions - Critical Forks in the Road for 2026 Reac Gar [atest White Paper to ord ar Al cG-pilot crashing your io I. . olane! (link below} What are the ‘Big Decisions’ IT leaders must consider? We canvased our delivery team and Read the white paper came up with this list... KEEP READING FOR MORE! RR ustecad gta corrfeontact »
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Written by lan C. Tomlin Fast-forward a decade and we i) will look upon 2026 as the year of ‘ the greatest financial reset in - business history. If 2023 was the : year of generative Al, 2026 will be a the year investors get real. - As 2025 drew to a close it gave the business- ) 3 : world an opportunity to reflect on what ’ - a. : happened across the year and draw breath. i Al WORKS, IT'S HUMANS THAT After the crude beginnings and rampant , enthusiasm for generative Al of the previous DON'T two years, 2025 became more of a get-real f sd That didn't do much to aoe Across Hs CITI STNCEERIeIE) ©) investors around the globe, who still wanted business there is much to throw money into the ‘glam brands’ of Al, disappointment in the practical anticipating a mountain of cash as their application of Al to make money. reward. All through 2025, stock markets were The fact is. it d k—and it awash with investors going big or small on Al, BRIE 05; I CIES Bese) | but all hoping to cash in. works well. The problem is (as always) humans. What we saw was disappointment as the . . A proverbial Al damp squid drifted up onto the Businesses like Newton Day, a boutique beach. Nevertheless. for most of our international consulting firm, prove the case for TEER cols it was too late to the application of artificial intelligence as an save face and not go all in’ So here we effective business enabler. In 12-months, the stand at the beginning of a New Year with company has added 100+ workers to its small swelled valuations on big tech. But the price workforce that now do over 45% of client work. of gold is telling. Whenever smart investors In the ‘Newton Day’ model, CREATE LLM has get been ‘made useful’ by a proprietary Al Operating System for the enterprise ("Build Any twitchy on stock robustness, they ‘run to Agent”). mama’ and buy gold. We have just seen the . . , highest Gold price ever. The price of gold has The result is a suite of ‘educated Al Agents who just hit its highest ever, surging beyond Know everything about the company, its $5,000 per ounce for the first time. clients, their markets and solutions, etc. The What does this matter to the digital leaders performance and usefulness of Bgentelnas of enterprise? Simply this. When stock been shaped by Work Instructions, Protocols markets around the globe finally get real on and a Code of CEE; all underpinned DYsS the practical valuations of Al companies, the 42001 data security and anti-bias controls that rest of the world of business will also catch a make the agents safe and reliable for its cold. workforce to use.
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Why isn’t every business like Newton Day? Enterprise should not be criticized for the slow- The answer comes down to the failings of the paced adoption of generative Al. These ‘GAFAM'’ Big 5 tech companies decision makers are not to blame if they've (Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, made the solid decision not to be persuaded Meta/Facebook, and Microsoft). Most to invest because they don't see the value. In companies rely on these firms to ‘do their truth, they've been let down by the GAAFAM innovation thinking for them’ and, the brutal companies they entrust with digital innovation. truth is they've singularly failed to deliver the infrastructure business needs to make artificial intelligence actually ‘do work’ for WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? businesses. It's 2026, investors will get tired of THE DISRUPTION TRAP weak returns. The GAFAM group of companies has been caught in a trap most industries Every day, Al is burning money. This experience when paradigm market money has come from investors. They shifts happen: their new business mode! [JREURILEIREEILIELY: BETETG ELT doesn't have the same revenue there is no big cash day on the horizon. potential of the lgreey model They get We've learned, in 2025, that the Large stuck between stick or bust. Language Models (LLM's) and huge dota When industry transformations happen, centers that have been promoted by GAAFAM incumbent players-those firms making the big [ICICIEERUERsC Ile TESTE CRIUL ASS money in the legacy industry-face a stark achieving value from artificial intelligence for choice. knowing the new business models business. Smart money, and the best minds in don't generate revenues on the same scale os [ISACROUIETEUMAISITRE SE ICC RU IIR ee] their current business model, drives decisions, sponsors and shifted their attention to the with unintended consequences. next generation of Al .. Multimodal integration, Hybrid Neuro-symbolic reasoning, and Long- The leadership team of Kodak is regularly Memory systems that can process data singled out as an example of poor innovation continuously, rather than relying on static leadership. In the 1990s, they were accused of training datasets. ‘failing to innovate’ and of ‘letting this great company fail’ when the transition from analog Those of us that lived through the dotcom to digital cameras destroyed it (the firm boom and bust know what this feels like, and stumbled on, a shadow of itself for another we know what to expect. People are quick to decade before finally giving up). remember the financial cloud of DOTCOM. Let's not forget, this did not kill the technology The fact is, Kodak WAS in the digital camera that underpinned this early-stage stock market. Many thought they had the best market enthusiasm for the next big digital products. The problem was, they made more wave, it made it boulder. money from analog, so their efforts to market It won't be GAAFAM firms that re-invent digital cameras was, at best, halfhearted. enterprise ecosystems. They are trapped by their business model conundrums. Artificial Fast forward two-decades, and GAAFAM firms Intelligence requires a redrawing of enterprise are attempting to ‘glue’ generative Al into their [ICICIICEUNESIISSUECISRCR SALLY current apps and tech-stack. This is not ‘root get ‘the other side’ of the Al investor bubble, and branch’ stuff, it's a cludge. We're left with that serious business of adopting pragmatic CO-PILOTS to suggest things we can do to get Al Operating Systems for the enterprise can work done. That's not a new worker, it's a bad begin. counsellor.
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MANAGING SOW (WRITTEN BY THEEPIKA DEVARAJ) . . . ~ - ZL : - -NT OF WORK fea ACTING INIT IS ci ny — MING. BUT HOW DO v CAN Way rr OU GET THE BEST Ca ¥ JS 2 RESULTS? — Statement of Work contracting for IT projects SE, | ~ is where it's at. Using a statement of work to Po ' wl A frame projects means that contractors and See vd suppliers (even internal resources if you want > g to go that far) are rewarded for achieving Le Sd . milestones and outcomes, not simply paid for yy >; 3 their time. This tweak in project contract CN i 3 nd management makes a huge difference when AS it comes to managing complex IT projects. Furthermore, SoW contracts can leave a This ‘focus on outcomes’ is the core strength backwash of extra admin and accounting of Sow, but it's not the only reason to do it. IT jobs that someone has to pick up. Much of this projects have often failed because they were ends up on the shoulders of the accounts entrusted to a large external expert receivable clerk. Gaining approvals for organization (creating a single point of failure), signoffs, sorting out Goods Received Notes and or to inexperienced and oversubscribed all of those little tasks in departmental internal resources, unable to focus their efforts workflows can derail what is otherwise a and attention on the minutia of project progressive step towards IT project results. management tasks. SOW contracts democratize the Project management The answer to getting this internal tuning right overhead of IT projects. Each delivery partner for Sow contracts is to work with a becomes responsible for its own project commissioning partner, like ~~ <CH DIGITAL, organization. This approach results in more that offers the oversight *hand holding’ partners, but less overall project risk. That said, services and technology platforms for Sow implementing Sow contracting can introduce contract management. We help you to its own blend of challenges for IT project accelerate the adoption of SOW contracting leaders. without asking your internal departments to pick up the admin and risk management The advantages of ‘not putting all your eggs in workload that inevitably comes with it. one basket’ has the counter effect of increasing back-office admin complexity. Our Al native platforms empower greater There are more delivery partners, more emails insight and efficiencies in SOW project to send, more checks to sign off. If not management that result in significant carefully orchestrated, the rampant use of operational efficiencies that easily offset costs SoW in a business rides roughshod over the associated with working with a facilitation approved procurement and fiscal partner. «to find out more? Get in touch safeguarding systems previously crafted for 2 one of our SOW contracting the very different world of IT outsourcing. sts
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AGENDA? eo The following steps provide a structured ASIONS - methodology for IT leaders to assemble their 2026 lan, moving from assessment to execution. .-ORKS IN THE P 9 Step I: Conduct a “Legacy of Pilots” Audit (Ql OR 2026 p egacy (@ 2026) What are the "Big Decisions” IT i Co ] leaders must consider? We Review all active Al initiatives. Identify which N * have real autonomous potential and clear ROL. canvased our delivery team and Outcome: 3 5 Flagship” projects to scale; a came up with this list: “Kill List” tor the rest. Step 2: Implement "Trigger-Based” Scenario Decision 1: The "Kill or Scale” Decision Planning Organizations have hundreds of fragmented Replace static roadmaps with scenarios for CE] (RI FREE] [R20 =v key disruptors (e.g. new data laws, pricing Most are stuck in “Pilot Purgatory”. spikes, cyber risks). Outcome: A Dynamic Decision Matrix that lets you act quickly when conditions change. Step 3: Establish the "Al Foundation” ‘os w . . Af Workstream Decision 2: The “Sovereignty” Decision i a Assess infrastructure for Al supercomputin Geopatriation and data localization laws are ; q re for A supercomputing h A q and confidential computing, ensuring cloud making global public cloud architectures } ; - ; . contracts support sovereignty and scale. legally risky and financially unpredictable. AR Co Outcome: An investment plan prioritizing compute power and compliance over mere elasticity. Step 4: Redefine the Talent “Social Contract” Decision 3: The "Agentic Trust” Decision Map staff to the "FTE [ Gig / Agent” model and clarity evolving roles. Agentic Al can execute actions (buy, sell, Outcome: Retain top “Synthesists™ and source delete) without human approval. This creates specialized gig talent efficiently. massive operational risk. Step 5: Launch Agentic Governance Set cross-functional rules for Al agents, including authentication and authorization Decision 4: The “Defense” Decision protocols. Outcome: A framework that enables Reactive tools (SIEM, EDR) are failing to catch innovation while preventing rogue Al use. Al-speed attacks. Need some help? = |. session sth one too 2020 amtolians Ie
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