2026, the year of truth in IT: why the sector is entering a hard economic selection

In an interview, Metaminds CEO Ovidiu Ghiman frames 2026 as a turning point for the IT industry — the moment several pressures converge: the end of the cheap-growth investment model that carried the sector for a decade, the accelerating reach of AI, and a demanding macroeconomic climate.

Organisations built around 2015–2023 cost structures, he warns, can slide into unprofitability within twelve to eighteen months. Gradual tweaks won’t be enough; what’s required is structural change in how teams are sized, how decisions are made and how value is measured.

The defining shift is from volume to value. The question is no longer how fast a team can build, but why it is building and what the return is. Productivity, Ghiman argues, has too often been confused with intense activity; the real measure is economic value created per unit of cost — an equation AI rewrites, letting a small, sharp team outproduce a large one.

AI also moves the centre of gravity of IT work from execution to decision-making. Repetitive roles — standardised coding, manual testing, first-line support, basic reporting — are the most exposed, while architecture, AI integration, data governance and security become the scarce, valuable skills.

For Romania, Ghiman sees opportunity in the change: as access to large volumes of labour matters less, specialists with advanced competencies gain ground. His conclusion is blunt — seniority will be defined less by years of experience than by the level of responsibility and the impact a person carries.