Market intelligence firm IDC unveiled its top technology predictions for 2026 to 2030 at the IDC FutureScape 2026 event in Singapore earlier this month, outlining how Asia Pacific is shifting from the AI Pivot to what it described as the Agentic Future.

IDC forecasts that by 2030 half of all new economic value generated by digital businesses in the region will come from organisations that are investing in and scaling their AI capabilities today as enterprises embed autonomy, data intelligence and responsible governance into long term strategies to achieve measurable business impact.

As part of FutureScape 2026, IDC will release more than sixty Asia Pacific reports that include detailed forecasts for China, Japan and Korea.

Each report will examine how technology, AI and digital transformation are reshaping industries and business models through 2030.

Sandra Ng, senior vice president at IDC Asia Pacific, described 2026 as the dawn of the Agentic Era and said “enterprises across the region are moving beyond experimentation and pilot projects to a future where AI acts with intent, autonomy and accountability”.

“In this new phase, leadership clarity and responsible scaling are critical,” she said.

“Success is measured by how much more we can achieve when AI becomes our amplifier,” she added.

“Discovery is the journey we must all undertake in this unprecedented era,” she explained.

“The best will lead through AI, learning fast and guiding others on this journey of change,” she continued.

The event also examined what IDC calls the Customer AI Journey, a framework designed to help organisations determine their current level of AI adoption and scaling.

IDC’s FutureScape predictions for 2026 to 2030 guided participants through the main stages of this journey, ranging from assessing AI maturity and identifying high value use cases to measuring return on investment, driving strategic growth and preparing leadership for the emerging Agentic Future.

IDC expects that by 2030 half of all new economic value created by digital businesses in Asia Pacific and Japan will come from companies that are already investing in and scaling their AI capabilities.

It expects that in 2026 forty five per cent of AI driven digital use cases in the region will fail to meet return on investment targets due to unclear gains and weak data foundations.

It predicts that by 2027 half of the top one thousand Asia based chief information officers will be tasked with producing enterprise AI value playbooks to measure AI’s business impact.

It expects that by 2029 fifty five per cent of chief executives in the region’s top one thousand companies who lack a clear AI strategy will face pressure to step down, alongside APJ IT spending that is forecast to rise by seven per cent to reach 1.123 trillion US dollars in 2026.

IDC also forecasts that by 2028 sixty per cent of chief information officer roles in the top one thousand companies will be filled by transformational leaders implementing AI powered business models.

Sandra Ng explained that “this year our theme Charting the Agentic Future signals a defining shift from AI as a tool to AI as a catalyst for accelerated outcomes”.

She continued by saying that “as machines take on repetitive work, human capacity rises toward context and imagination”. Ng mentioned that “in this new era, AI executes and people interpret and decide, AI predicts and people prioritise and act, AI scales knowledge and people shape purpose and impact”.

She added “the Agentic Future does not wait for readiness, it rewards motion”.

IDC’s global and cross industry research also presented several wider trends that it believes will reshape leadership and innovation in the coming years.

IDC said that sixty six per cent of chief executives in Asia Pacific and Japan believe that AI will give their organisations a chance to reinvent business models within the next three to five years.

It expects that by 2027 forty five per cent of AI applications and services will fail to progress beyond proof of concept, prompting chief executives to establish AI centres of excellence to centralise strategy, governance and scaling efforts.

IDC forecasts that by 2027 sixty per cent of organisations will manage multi agent experiences across channels, applications and suppliers to deliver more seamless and context rich engagement.

Together these forecasts illustrate IDC’s view that the next decade of digital competition will depend on leadership accountability, ecosystem intelligence and the ability to convert data into sustainable value.