The Future of IoT Development: Trends and Predictions for 2026

OEMs are constantly developing new solutions and products for industrial and consumer use cases. Enterprises are seeing the value of IoT and are rapidly adopting the Internet of Things to streamline their processes and make them more efficient.

Individuals are bringing more IoT devices into their homes and offices to make their lives easier and more convenient.

Read on for the current state of IoT worldwide and the ten trends worth planning around — with each one marked for what is already in production, what is still a forecast, and what would actually constrain you if you tried to build on it.

Current State of IoT

Globally, the number of IoT devices is expected to reach 29 billion by 2030, up from a mere 9.7 billion in 2020. The Internet of Things market volume is expected to reach US$33.74 billion by 2027, with a staggering CAGR of 11.49% from 2022 to 2027.

Among enterprise IoT usage, most deployments are in electricity, gas, steam, water supply, and waste management, as well as the wholesale and retail industry.

Transportation, storage, and the government sectors are also trailing closely behind in IoT deployments. These top industry verticals alone have deployed more than 100 million IoT devices. Besides these, industries such as connected vehicles, IT infrastructure, and asset tracking are expected to have more than a billion devices by 2030.

In the consumer segment, the smart home sector is leading in deploying Internet of Things devices. By 2025, the smart home segment is expected to grow by 350 million.

Voice assistants have seen significant growth over the last year, with millennials making the most significant contributions. Around 65% of people between the ages of 25 and 34 use voice assistants in their daily lives. They're closely followed by people between 18 and 24, with around 59% of the demographic using voice assistants.

Smartphones and other media devices continue to be the most commonly used IoT devices in the consumer segment.

The last couple of years have also seen much attention toward IoT security. Improving security was one of the most common reasons to adopt IoT, at least among European users. However, users and governments have become very aware of IoT devices' security risks and vulnerabilities.

A significant portion of cyberattacks in 2020 targeted organizations using IoT devices. Governments have started drafting or even rolling out legislation setting minimum security standards for IoT devices.

Also Read: IoT Tech for Consumer Healthcare

Top 10 IoT Trends and Predictions for 2026

Before the detail, here is the honest status of each one. The distinction that matters when you are planning spend is between what you can buy and deploy today, what is emerging but carries real constraints, and what is still research — interesting, but not something to put in a roadmap.

Trend	Status	What it means for your business	The constraint
1. Digital twins	Established in asset-heavy industries	Simulate changes before making them; the payback is strongest where downtime is expensive	Needs accurate asset models and a live data feed — most of the cost is data, not simulation
2. AI and IoT	Established — predictive maintenance and anomaly detection are routine	The clearest near-term ROI in industrial IoT	Needs historical failure data, which many plants have never recorded in usable form
3. New sensor technology	Established and steadily cheaper	Falling unit costs make previously uneconomic monitoring viable	Installation, calibration and maintenance now dominate cost, not the sensor
4. 5G and connected vehicles	Established in coverage, uneven in practice	Enables real-time telematics and OTA updates at fleet scale	Coverage gaps and per-device connectivity cost; most use cases still work on 4G
5. Chip-level innovation	Established — low-power AI accelerators are shipping	Inference on the device cuts bandwidth and keeps data local	Long hardware design cycles; component availability still bites on niche parts
6. IoT in healthcare	Established for monitoring; regulated for anything clinical	Remote monitoring and connected devices with reimbursable use cases	Regulatory clearance, HIPAA obligations and clinical validation — see our HIPAA guide
7. Privacy and regulation	Established and tightening	Design constraint on every connected product you ship	Rules differ by market; retrofitting compliance costs far more than designing for it
8. IoT for sustainability	Established in buildings and energy; emerging elsewhere	Metering and control with a measurable payback on energy spend	Savings depend on someone acting on the data — dashboards alone change nothing
9. 6G	Research — standardisation is years out	Nothing to act on now	No commercial deployments; plan on 4G/5G for anything shipping this decade
10. Quantum computing	Research, with one practical exception	The actionable part is post-quantum cryptography in long-lived devices	No production IoT workload benefits from quantum compute today; a device shipping now may still be in the field when crypto standards change

If you want the implementation side rather than the outlook, our guides to IoT in manufacturing, enterprise IoT and IoT in healthcare go into architecture, pilots and costs.

1. Digital Twins

With widespread digitization and cheap sensing, digital twins have spread well beyond their aerospace and heavy-industry origins into manufacturing, energy, logistics and buildings. The technology gives more visibility into an organization's processes and lets stakeholders test a change in simulation before committing to it. The last two years have seen the rapid maturation of this technology, and the trend is expected to become more mainstream. Organizations are trying to build robust supply chains and logistics solutions after the COVID-19 crisis, and digital twins will play a huge role here.

Companies in the space are collaborating with tech giants to reach diverse clients and improve their solutions. For instance, Ansys Inc., involved in mechanical engineering and simulation, has joined hands with Microsoft Azure.

The past year has also seen attempts at building a standard for digital twins, with Twinify and Digital Twin Consortium leading the pack.

2. AI and IoT

The proliferation of IoT devices has allowed organizations previously unavailable access to granular data about their operations. Businesses can get detailed insights regarding their employees, productivity, service or product quality, and other information. Companies have started to leverage this data to develop and power their artificial intelligence models.

By integrating AI into their systems, businesses can automate more processes and improve the quality of their products and services. The last year has seen more IoT solutions with edge processing capabilities.

These solutions allow organizations to deploy AI closer to the sensors or actuators, reducing connectivity requirements and empowering faster decision-making within Internet of Things systems. They have also enabled the deployment of IoT solutions in more industries and for more applications.

Technologies like predictive maintenance are now widespread and mainstream. Increasingly we expect more businesses to adopt these technologies in their manufacturing, assembly, logistics, shipping, fleet management, and other processes.

3. New Sensor Tech

Sensor innovation has followed a steady pattern rather than a dramatic one: more capability per part, lower unit prices, and lower power draw each generation. The practical consequence for buyers is that monitoring which was uneconomic three years ago often pencils out now — and that the sensor is rarely the expensive part any more. Gartner also predicts innovation in algorithms which will help gain more insights from existing sensor technology.

Suppliers such as Bosch now ship long-range lidar, high-performance magnetometers, barometric pressure sensors and AI-enabled sensor modules as catalogue parts rather than as announcements.

The company, along with many other players, is expected to showcase new sensor systems designed for autonomous vehicles. There is news about sensors that can track driver and vehicle performance, preventive maintenance, and fleet analytics.

In the field of smart agriculture, Himax Technologies has partnered with Seeed Studio to showcase the LoRaWAN Vision AI sensor at CES.

4. 5G Connected Car Services

5G coverage is now broad across most developed markets, and the early criticism of patchy rollouts has largely been answered on coverage, if not always on performance.

That shifts the useful question for an IoT programme: not whether 5G reaches your devices, but whether your use case needs it. Most connected-product deployments run perfectly well on 4G or LPWAN at lower connectivity cost, and 5G earns its price mainly where you need low latency, heavy uplink bandwidth, or network slicing.

The launch of 5G services has also prompted advances in connected car tech. Many operators are trying to launch connected car services as an add-on to customers' 5G plans. This is expected to increase vehicle-to-vehicle communication, improve ADAS systems' situational awareness, and reduce collisions.

AT&T has already announced that it will work with BMW and Polaris to offer connected vehicle tech. Their NumberSync plan allows owners of select BMW cars to make and receive calls through their vehicles even when they don't have their phones with them.

5. Chip-Level Innovation for IoT Devices

While we have seen advances in IoT sensors and solutions, we have yet to see much innovation at the chip level. Over the next year, we can expect this to change. We can expect more specialized chips for IoT systems leveraging their specific advantages and use cases.

These changes are primarily driven by the popularity of edge computing and AI in IoT solutions. Organizations are demanding more processing power at the edge, and the industry is responding with new architectures and instruction sets.

Low-power neural accelerators now ship in mainstream microcontroller families, which is what makes on-device inference practical in battery-powered products. The knock-on effect is architectural: a device that can classify locally sends events instead of raw streams, and connectivity and cloud costs fall accordingly. And, of course, these changes will drive further innovation in AI solutions that will take advantage of the new chips.

The acute shortages that disrupted hardware programmes in the early 2020s have eased, though availability of specialised parts remains a live schedule risk. Organizations and governments continue to work on supply resilience, which is expected to continue in 2025. Companies are trying to build robust supply chains and reduce their reliance on a very small number of chip manufacturers.

6. IoT in Healthcare

The last couple of years have seen IoT advance into healthcare in the form of wearables, voice assistants, and connected medical equipment. Heart rate and SpO2 sensors have become common in smartwatches and wearables. In 2025, we can expect more IoT solutions to hit healthcare institutions. The market is expected to hit $267 billion by the following year.

The upcoming year will see wearables get smarter and incorporate sensors that can measure more parameters. We can also expect more at-home smart sensors to monitor patients' vitals.

According to Forbes, we may become familiar with the concept of a virtual hospital ward, where doctors and nurses will oversee and monitor patients within their homes.

7. Ethical, Legal, and Privacy Concerns About IoT

The past couple of years has seen increasing awareness about the risks of IoT devices among the general population. This was highlighted in Gartner's 'Top IoT Strategic Trends and Technologies Through 2025' report. As the technology matures, the ethical and social implications have become more apparent.

Consumers have become aware of the privacy risks that IoT devices pose. Concerns about the ownership of data, how it may be used, and how it will be secured have been raised. For instance, over the last year, it became clear that Ring doorbells were sharing footage with law enforcement agencies without users' consent, raising questions about privacy and consent.

Governments are introducing legislation to address these concerns. The EU's Digital Services Act is one such measure aimed at reducing the impact of malicious actors. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission has proposed new regulations for data privacy, and California has introduced new privacy laws to enhance consumer rights.

Expect this direction to continue: more jurisdictions, more disclosure obligations, and more requirements that land on the product rather than on the privacy policy. Design for it now — data minimisation, clear consent, a documented retention period and a way to delete a device's data are far cheaper as design decisions than as retrofits.

8. IoT for Sustainability

Climate change has been on the agenda for governments and organizations around the world. Over the last couple of years, organizations have started using IoT solutions to reduce their environmental footprint. Solutions such as predictive maintenance, energy-efficient IoT devices, and connected sensors are expected to become more popular.

Energy monitoring is now among the easiest IoT business cases to justify, because the baseline is measurable and the saving appears on a bill. The caveat: metering alone saves nothing. The return comes from acting on what the meters show, which means someone has to own the changes. We may also see widespread adoption of solutions such as smart waste management, precision agriculture, and renewable energy management systems.

Organizations are likely to invest in smart buildings and smart grids to support sustainability goals. Smart buildings will help monitor and manage energy consumption and optimize the use of resources. Smart grids will enable real-time management of electricity distribution and improve the efficiency of renewable energy sources.

9. 6G Research

Research on the next generation of connectivity — 6G — is well underway, with standardisation and commercial deployment still years away. Treat it as context rather than as a plan: nothing you ship in the next few years will depend on it. Expect further breakthroughs and continued discussion of its potential impact on IoT.

The 6G technology promises higher speeds, lower latency, and more reliable connections. These advancements are expected to enhance the capabilities of IoT systems and drive the development of new applications and use cases.

Several organizations and research institutions are already working on 6G technologies. For instance, Samsung has released a white paper on 6G, outlining its vision for the technology and its potential applications.

As research progresses, we may see the first prototypes and experimental deployments of 6G technology in the coming years.

10. Quantum Computing

The rise of quantum computing is expected to have a significant impact on IoT in the future. While quantum computing is still in its early stages, it has the potential to revolutionize how data is processed and analyzed.

Quantum computers can solve complex problems much faster than traditional computers. This capability could be applied to various IoT use cases, such as optimizing supply chains, enhancing security, and analyzing large datasets.

One part of this deserves attention now, and it is not compute. Devices shipping today may still be in the field when today's public-key cryptography is no longer considered safe, so long-lived hardware should be built for crypto-agility — the ability to update algorithms remotely — with an eye on post-quantum standards. Organizations may start exploring quantum computing solutions to address specific challenges and unlock new opportunities.

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