While 2025 was characterized as an “ugly duckling” year defined by tariff uncertainty and geopolitical tension, the outlook for 2026 is significantly brighter for the IT channel. In her keynote at the GTDC Summit, Constance Hunter, Chief Economist at EIU Global, revealed that massive capital expenditure in AI has effectively overwhelmed cyclical market fears, putting the U.S. on the verge of a decade-long productivity boom.
The new growth formula
Hunter presented a fundamental equation for MSPs to understand the current economy:
GDP growth = growth of the working-age population + growth of productivity.
With aging populations and a shrinking workforce across developed nations, productivity is the only lever left to pull to maintain a healthy economy.
“Technology breakthroughs impact per-capita GDP significantly,” Hunter noted. She projected that while current U.S. GDP growth is estimated at a conservative 2.35%, the actual potential for the next decade could be closer to 3% as AI-driven efficiencies take hold.
2025 began with deep-seated fears regarding tariffs and rising uncertainty. Hunter compared this period to the “Chicken Little” fable, where a single acorn falling led to a panicked belief that the sky was falling.
Constance Hunter, Chief Economist, EIU GlobalWhile many anticipated these tensions would lead to a recession, the “ugly duckling” of 2025 has transformed because the underlying AI movement proved unexpectedly strong. To help partners navigate these “tectonic shifts,” Hunter noted that the EIU now tracks operational risk for 180 countries and business environment rankings for 160 countries.
Three dimensions of the AI impact
For MSPs advising clients on their 2026 budgets, Hunter outlined three specific areas where technology is rewriting the economic rules:
- Job composition: Composition is changing rather than disappearing. Hunter noted that AI agents represent a “massive productivity boon” because they can work 24/7 without the traditional constraints of human labor.
- Hours worked: AI is enabling higher living standards even as total hours worked per person stabilizes or declines. This allows organizations to break the traditional “labor-to-revenue” ceiling.
- Capital formation: As the yield curve remains positive, financial intermediaries are more likely to deploy the capital needed for MSPs to fund large-scale transformation projects. Hunter emphasized the “holy grail” of this new economy: “We’re moving into an era where we can scale our businesses without necessarily scaling our headcount in a linear fashion – to grow revenue faster than expenses.”
The future of digital labor and policy
As AI agents increasingly function as “digital workers,” Hunter warned of a looming debate over the “robot tax.”
“Is that agent paying taxes? That agent isn’t getting paid and doesn’t need to pay into the social security system,” Hunter posited. She suggested that over the next three to five years, policymakers will struggle with these questions. She highlighted the Yale Budget Lab as a critical resource for dynamic scoring – a method that looks at the granular economic impact of taxation and technology spending more accurately than traditional models.
The “stag hunt” of 2026
Hunter concluded with a lesson in game theory, comparing the current global economy to a stag hunt. Success in a cooperative equilibrium requires leadership, trust, and accountability – values that distributors and their MSP partners must provide to their end customers during this “strange equilibrium” of simultaneous global shifts.
“The AI movement globally is unexpectedly strong,” she concluded. For the channel, this translates to a persistent tailwind that is likely to keep the “ugly duckling” of 2025 growing into a robust 2026.
