My 5 Predictions for Privacy in 2026: AI Agents Won’t Replace You. They’ll Do the Work for You.

Our 2026 predictions series invites privacy leaders to reflect on what’s in store for 2026. Here, Daniel Barber (CEO, DataGrail) lists his predictions going into the new year. Also check out predictions by Andy Dale and Steve Lappenbusch.

2026 won’t introduce new privacy problems. It will expose which teams actually adapted in 2025… and which ones didn’t.

The trends are already in motion. The difference next year is pressure. More enforcement. Less tolerance. Higher personal and organizational risk.

Here’s what I expect privacy leaders to face in 2026:

1. AI Agents will stop assisting, and start doing

In 2025, AI helped answer questions. In 2026, leading teams will let it do the work.

Not chatbots. Not copilots.

Actual AI agents completing:

• Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs)
• Records of Processing Activities (RoPAs)
• Risk documentation that has historically been manual, slow, and brittle

Teams that treat AI as a novelty will fall behind. Teams that operationalize it will finally scale.

2. Shadow IT and Shadow AI will become the same problem

Over 80% of software will include AI capabilities.

Every SaaS vendor is racing to differentiate with AI features, often faster than legal, privacy, or security can review them.

The result:

• AI tools embedded everywhere
• Data flowing in ways teams can’t see
• And risk accumulating without ownership

CISOs and GCs won’t be able to block this.

They’ll need to distinguish between low-risk, incidental AI use and high-risk, data-extractive applications. 

Visibility becomes the control plane. Without it, governance fails.

3. Companies with sensitive data will come under fire

Those paying attention know this isn’t new, but it’s going to become obvious in 2026. 

Regulators are already signaling they’ll focus on children’s data, medical data, and financial data. 

We saw this with Healthline. Browsing data became medical data. Medical data is sensitive data. And enforcement followed, aggressively.

If your company touches sensitive data, scrutiny isn’t hypothetical. It’s scheduled.

4. U.S. enforcement will start with opt-outs

Opt-out compliance was the easiest enforcement target in 2025. It will remain the easiest in 2026.

In 2024, only 25% of consent banners actually honored opt-outs.

In 2025, that number rose to just 31%.

As states collaborate and bring in private enforcement firms, opt-outs will be the first test. Opt-outs are simple to audit, easy to prove, and hard to defend if broken. Business size won’t matter, and about 70% of businesses won’t be ready.

5. The U.S. privacy patchwork will get harder, not clearer

State AI bills may pause, but privacy legislation will not. There will be no federal privacy law in 2026. But state privacy laws aren’t aligning anymore. Maryland is the preview, a state law that in some ways is more strict than GDPR. Enforcement begins this spring — with obligations stricter than many global programs expect.

For global brands, “just apply GDPR” will no longer work. U.S. compliance will require U.S.-specific design.

The Bottom Line

2026 doesn’t reward effort. It rewards execution. Privacy teams will face more scrutiny, less forgiveness, and higher stakes, often with the same headcount. If 2025 showed you the cracks, 2026 will decide whether they widen.

That’s why we built DataGrail’s 2026 Product Vision the way we did: to move privacy from reactive compliance to controlled execution. We’re committed to helping teams get ahead — before enforcement does.

Daniel Barber is the cofounder and CEO of DataGrail. Find him on LinkedIn.