Five Themes Shaping the Next Decade of Tech – STACK Conference 2026

STACK Conference 2026: Exploring the future of tech

Agentic AI, cloud computing, data-enabled services, engineering productivity, and digital safety are reshaping how technology gets built, secured, and enabled. From the rapid rise of AI to breakthroughs in cloud computing, the pace of change is harder than ever to predict in the tech ecosystem today. GovTech Singapore is undergoing a similar shift, accelerating modernisation and orchestrating AI across the Singapore Government to stay at the forefront as a tech leader in the public sector. 

STACK Conference 2026 is a valuable opportunity to dive into pioneering innovations and insightful discussions with tech experts in the field.  STACK Conference has evolved over the years, alongside advancements in the industry, keeping attendees up to date today with the changes shaping tech. 

This year's five themes bring together CIOs, software developers, designers, product teams, operations leaders, renowned international and local tech experts to explore the technologies shaping the coming decade and discover what it means for them. 

Theme 1: Unleashing AI autonomy – Beyond Chatbots 

AI is moving beyond simply answering questions. The next generation of AI agents can plan, reason, and execute complex workflows, becoming active participants at work rather than assistive tools. This leap in agentic capability is accelerating adoption fast, where a Deloitte study found 72% of Singapore businesses plan to deploy agentic AI across operations within two years, up from just 15% today, a nearly fivefold increase. 

GovTech has also piloted an AI agents suite for 150,000 public employees to integrate AI into their daily work, aiming to give every officer a secure personal digital assistant. It is a step toward GovTech's original mission: enabling the public sector to be self-reliant technology users, where officers can use AI reliably in their own work. 

Yet greater AI autonomy creates another governance challenge in terms of accountability and permissions, and when a human should intervene. 

STACK Conference 2026 brings together speakers who can weigh in on such questions. AWS's Vishal Sharma explores the guardrails needed to keep autonomous workflows safe. Elastic's Shay Banon examines how observability must evolve so teams can trust autonomous systems. Microsoft's Dr Tok Wee Hyong brings the data perspective, showing how Microsoft Fabric unifies analytics, governance, and AI readiness. 

Together, these sessions help attendees understand where AI autonomy can create value, what guardrails are needed, and how to measure whether autonomous systems are improving real work.

Theme 2: Anticipate the Future – Data-Enabled User Experience  

The best digital services anticipate needs before users express them, a capability that depends on data platforms and sharing practices working behind the scenes. 

Globally, most governments are still catching up, with the OECD's Digital Government 2026 report finding that while the foundations for anticipatory service are largely in place, few have turned that investment into services that genuinely anticipate citizen needs. 

Singapore's LifeSG shows what closing that gap looks like, using data to connect citizens to relevant benefits and guide users through processes like job or preschool searches. 

That same challenge, connecting fragmented data into something usable is what STACK Conference 2026's speakers will unpack. Google's Anna Coniglio looks at data-enabled user experiences, and Databricks' Arsalan Tavakoli-Shirazi shows how to build production AI on the Lakehouse. 

For data engineers, data scientists, and product teams, the takeaway is clear: how to move services from reactive to anticipatory by building connected, trusted data platforms. 

Theme 3: Supercharge Productivity – Engineering Velocity & Intent-Driven Development 

AI is now embedded across the software lifecycle, increasingly working from natural-language intent rather than manual specification, a shift forcing engineering teams to rethink their platforms and practices.  

Stack Overflow's 2025 Developer Survey, which drew responses from nearly 50,000 developers worldwide, found that 84% now use or plan to use AI coding tools in their daily work, with 70% of developers agreeing that the AI tools have significantly cut their time spent on specific development tasks. Singapore's public sector is moving in the same direction: GovTech's SHIP-HATS pipeline integrates AI-assisted code scanning and testing, automating parts of the security review and quality assurance stages of the development lifecycle, increasing overall productivity.  

At STACK Conference 2026, three speakers bring that shift to life. Atlassian DX's Brian Houck looks at productivity and DORA metrics (the DevOps Research and Assessment benchmarks for engineering performance), and how leaders can tell whether AI coding tools are helping. Thoughtworks' Mike Sutcliff ties together platform engineering and responsible AI adoption. GitLab's Sid Sijbrandij brings a personal story of how an engineering mindset and AI-assisted research shaped a novel cancer treatment path. 

For developers, the theme offers sharper tools and practices for scaling engineering effort. For platform and operations leaders, it points to the guardrails needed to help teams move faster,  safely. 

Theme 4: The Future of Cloud – Sustainable, Resilient & Effortless 

The cloud conversation has moved beyond migration. Organisations now need infrastructure that can withstand disruption, support demanding AI workloads, meet compliance and control requirements, and use resources more sustainably. 

This shift is playing out globally, with governments and enterprises alike moving to keep tighter control over their infrastructure. According to Gartner, global sovereign cloud spend will increase 35.6% in 2026, reaching US$80 billion, as more countries and organisations keep tighter control over their data. 

Singapore has already begun building for that reality. HTX's Hyperscale Enterprise Intelligent Digital Infrastructure (HEIDI), forms part of the Home Team's wider multi-cloud strategy, a concrete example of infrastructure built for resilience and control, not just scale. 

That same infrastructure question sits at the heart of STACK Conference 2026's cloud theme. Cloudflare's Michelle Zatlyn opens by examining what modern AI-era software actually runs on, from global delivery and edge computing to API protection and Zero Trust. 

For attendees such as cloud and infrastructure teams, they can expect ideas for designing infrastructure that's scalable, secure, and AI-ready, while cutting operational friction. 

Theme 5: Designing for All – Digital Safety & Inclusivity 

AI is becoming part of everyday infrastructure, which means security, accessibility, and responsible AI principles can no longer be treated as an afterthought; they need to be built in from the start, against threats and gaps of every kind. 

Singapore is building toward that on several fronts at once. GovTech has outlined a response to AI-driven cybersecurity threats, strengthening whole-of-government security, using AI to give defenders an edge over attackers, and equipping public officers to use AI safely. On accessibility, IMDA's WCAG 2.1 Level AA push aims to bring government sites to full compliance by 2030, up from a baseline of just 61% today, backed by tools like Oobee, which scans for accessibility gaps, and A11y Playground, which lets teams test against real accounts from persons with disabilities. On trust, GovTech's Responsible AI framework applies principles like explainability and transparency, so citizens can understand how decisions are made and when they're interacting with AI. 

A secure system and an accessibility target do not automatically make a service usable for everyone. Digital products still need to accommodate diverse physical and cognitive needs, and people still need to understand when they're interacting with AI and how their data is used. 

For designers and product teams, this means making concrete choices around accessible design, AI safety, cybersecurity, and digital literacy, so that digital capability becomes something people can understand and rely on. 

Join us at STACK Conference 2026 

These five themes will shape the next decade of technology, and STACK Conference 2026 is where they will be explored in depth. The conference takes place on 4 and 5 November 2026, with hands-on workshops on 3 November. Across two days of keynotes, plenaries, panel discussions, and lightning talks, public and private-sector leaders, practitioners, and tech practitioners will exchange ideas and share practical solutions. 

Early bird tickets are available until 30 September 2026. Visit the STACK Conference 2026 event page to register and secure your spot.