Executive Summary: Outrageous Predictions 2026

The future almost never arrives in straight lines. Whether it's technology, culture, or politics, changes and evolution often come slowly from year to year. But then, suddenly, there is a lurch. Saxo’s Outrageous Predictions live in those lurches. They are not a house view or a forecast; they are low-probability, high-impact thought experiments designed to stretch the imagination and sharpen debate about what could happen if things leap forward in unexpected ways.

Let’s take a wandering tour of the ten outrageous developments that just could await in 2026. First, in tech, take cryptography and imagine what happens if Q-Day suddenly arrives in 2026, the day that quantum machines can crack yesterday’s digital locks effortlessly. Crypto collapses; gold screams to five figures; every bank and government scrambles to rebuild trust in a post-quantum security stack. Second, in the same year, markets discover that sudden culture shifts can move macro. A single wedding – Swift and Kelce – tips a generation out of doomscrolling and into backyards, marriages, and baby carriages. Fertility and household formation booms. Economists coin a new phrase with a smile: the Swiftie Put.

Third, in politics, the aggravated partisanship of recent years is suddenly upended after the ugly partisan shenanigans in the U.S. midterm elections shock the silent majority of independents into demanding reform and a strengthening of democratic institutions. Trump stays Trump, but America begins to move on. Fourth, in medicine, GLP-1 obesity drugs in pill-form transform human and even pet health. Waistlines shrink, lifespans stretch, and all food companies race to reinvent themselves for a lighter world.

Fifth, above the atmosphere, capital market discovers their next frontier. A SpaceX IPO valuation clears a trillion dollars and turns “space economy” from slogan to spreadsheet. Orbital manufacturing and lunar projects migrate from science fiction to investment committee. Sixth, back on Earth, an AI model becomes a Fortune 500 CEO, executing without ego and forcing boards to consider the unthinkable: a human-machine partnership at the top.

Seventh, geopolitics, never far from the tape in recent years, tests the monetary order as Beijing rolls out a gold-linked offshore yuan for redenomination of its trade. The dollar remains a king, but not the king. Eighth, while carefully constructed and prompted AI may help run a company, beneath the buzzwords, a humbling reckoning unfolds: dumb AI, or poorly governed agents and “agentic” automations, misfire en masse, generating a trillion-dollar cleanup and a new profession of “AI janitors” to disinfect the codebase of modern life.

Not only for the global economy, also in Switzerland some outrageous predictions might challenge the status-quo: Ninth, a CHF 30 billion investment by 2050 aims to expand solar and wind energy significantly, establishing the nation as a leader in sustainable energy, backed by international nuclear collaborations. Finally tenth, Swiss voters also reject deeper EU integration, choosing "sovereignty first," which strengthens the franc as a global safe haven while introducing new economic challenges. These Swiss scenarios highlight significant local shifts with global market implications.

Sure, the next shocks may come from where we are staring the hardest, like in AI or in geopolitics. But the direction things might take in these areas, not to mention the fallout, are certainly not in the price. Elsewhere, quantum may remain pie-in-the-sky, or it could disrupt profoundly. And geopolitics and cultural revolutions can prove the most jarring of all, especially when our societies suffer from dire inequality.

Again, Saxo’s aim with its yearly set of Outrageous Predictions is not to predict the year ahead, but to widen the aperture: to ask what breaks, what booms, and what blindsides when the world lurches. If these scenarios make you argue, it’s all better. The debate will help prepare you for these and any other surprises that might lie ahead.