Tech Trends Report 2026

Contrary

Research

352 Pages

The annual Contrary Tech Trends Report isolates the most important currents within technology and the way social behavior forms around them.

Key Takeaways

Cost & Consumption: As Al adoption has occurred, inference costs have started to decline across models, both proprietary and open source. However, power consumption across models has continued to rise significantly as usage increases.
China: Over the course of 2025, China’s open models have begun to overtake the open ecosystem in the West. Across Al repos on GitHub; Chinese open source stands out, with 6 out of 20 of the most popular Al accounts originating in China.
AI Usage: In terms of general usage, some estimates indicate ~44.8% of US businesses have a paid subscription to some kind of Al model, platform, or tool.
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