By Nigel Dews, Managing Director Restore Information Management

The story of 2026 is not about chasing the next breakthrough. Organisations aren’t abandoning innovation, but they are done with experimentation for its own sake. Big visions are being replaced by a focus on what works day to day. CIOs are under pressure to prove value, reduce risk, and keep the organisation running, not just to trial new technology. In our world of Information Management, trust, governance, and resilience matter just as much as innovation and increasingly determine whether it succeeds at all.

Over the past year, we’ve spoken extensively with organisations across sectors about their information management challenges and ambitions. Here’s what they told us and what we predict will be the trends in 2026.

1: From AI Hype to AI Practicalities 

With nearly nine in ten organisations now using AI in at least one business function, the question for 2026 isn’t whether to adopt AI, we’ve actually been using it for years, but how deeply it should be embedded into everyday operations. The focus is shifting away from generic tools and toward AI agents designed to handle governance, data quality, retention, and optimisation quietly in the background.

Yet, at the same time, CIOs are more cautious than ever. Talking to our customers reveals a growing scepticism toward overhyped “AI” promises, particularly where accuracy, security, and accountability are unclear. 

The message is consistent. AI must deliver practical value, operate transparently, and strengthen, not weaken compliance. 

 2: Legacy Foundations vs. Modern Expectations

Consumers want information at their fingertips; organisations want to differentiate via customer experience. Forcing organisations to access real time data around the clock and from anywhere. 

But here’s the friction point. Many are trying to deliver real-time insight on top of fragmented, legacy-heavy environments. The ambition is there; the foundations often aren’t. This gap explains why incremental progress still dominates, even as the need for speed accelerates.

The challenge isn’t choosing the next shiny technology. It’s building an information management ecosystem that can adapt, comply, provide efficiency and access, helping to make quicker decisions and improve the user’s end experience.

3. From Cloud Adoption to Cloud Judgment

Cloud‑native platforms have shifted from being a bold choice to an expected part of modern IT. With most large‑scale data environments now running partly or entirely in the cloud, the question is no longer “Should we use cloud?” but “How do we use it in the smartest way?”

For many organisations, hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are emerging as the pragmatic middle ground, balancing flexibility, resilience, and regulatory demands. This mirrors what CIOs are telling us: wholesale replacement of legacy systems is rarely realistic. Controlled evolution is.

4. UK Data Sovereignty and the return to local service 

UK organisations are becoming far more conscious of where their information lives, who can access it, and which legal frameworks ultimately govern it. Ongoing regulatory change, geopolitical uncertainty, and high-profile data breaches have sharpened awareness that data hosted or managed overseas can introduce risks that are difficult to see and even harder to control.

There’s a growing recognition that local service delivery matters. Information Management providers who combine UK infrastructure with on-the-ground service, deep understanding of local regulation, and the ability to support hybrid environments that blend digital and physical information securely provide more value than global ones. 

5. Trust Becomes the Differentiator

Perhaps the most striking insight from our customer research is this: technology is no longer the deciding factor.

Organisations consistently prioritise reliability, service quality, and delivery confidence over cutting-edge features. After years of ambitious promises and underwhelming execution, trust has become the real currency of digital transformation.

In 2026, information management partners will be judged not by how futuristic their platforms sound, but by how well they understand sector-specific pressures, compliance realities, and operational constraints.

6. Sector Specific Pressures 

In the public sector we will continue to see mandates for the NHS and Government for 
paperless and interoperable systems. Organisations will not only want to work with sector experts but trusted digital partners who can help them navigate legacy records and systems. 

They will want direct access to multiple experts who not only understand the sector they are in, but where they can offer flexible ways to meet their needs. 

7. Sustainability Continues to be a focus 

85% of companies increased their sustainability-related investments from 2023 to 2024, with green IT initiatives, paper reduction, and eco-friendly storage becoming standard considerations in information management strategies. This is a 10% rise from 2023. Sustainable data management practices and ethical AI deployment will influence procurement decisions. 2026 is shaping up to be the year organisations stop talking about transformation and start embedding it into governance models, operating rhythms, and everyday decision-making. Automation, real-time insight, compliance, sustainability, and trust are no longer separate conversations. They are converging into a single mandate: control at scale.

2026 isn’t a year of radical reinvention. It’s the year organisations finally make good on the promises of the last decade. As AI becomes business as usual, cloud strategies stabilise, and data sovereignty moves centre stage, the winners will be those who prioritise trust, governance, and real-world impact over hype. 

Information management is no longer a supporting function; it is the backbone of operational resilience, compliance, and customer experience.

If 2025 was the year businesses talked about transformation, 2026 is the year they’ll be forced to prove it. Organisations that can’t control their information won’t control their future.

Nigel Dews, Managing Director of Restore (one of our exhibitors at Facilities & Estates Management Live) on how paper-based documents still hold power and why combining physical storage with digitisation can be the best ‘paperlite’ storage solution. 

Many businesses think that digitising their documents and leaning towards a completely digital future is an all or nothing deal, but this isn’t always the case. In fact, there are a variety of reasons why the paperless office didn’t happen.

A common reason is simply that people love paper and like to have the physical evidence in their hand. Also, going digital is not as straight forward as it initially sounds.  If advised correctly, organisations do not need to digitise all paper records as they might have originally believed. Instead, paper-light is a popular approach which means digitising high priority and highly active records while still maintaining a physical presence where it’s most cost effective. Many customers still prefer physical records, or don’t have full digital access, so businesses still need to accommodate customers’ preferences.

LEGAL REASONS

In the case of legal situations, storing paper records instead of digitising is beneficial and sometimes required. UK businesses must retain financial records for at least six years and some documents, such as patient records, may need to be stored longer depending on their nature or if there are any potential legal claims associated with them. Additionally, in the case of legal investigations or audits, having the original paper documents can be crucial. If a company is required to produce these documents, keeping them in their original form ensures compliance with legal requests.

PROTECTING AGAINST DAMAGE:

Digitising important documents to protect against damage may seem to be the safest choice. However, this is not the case. In fact, Restore stores more than 22 million boxes full of important records in highly secure facilities. Storing both digital and physical documents comes with risks, so it’s important to provide the right environment, as well as ensure that proper mitigations and standards are in place to minimise damage during the digitising process, such as correct equipment, handling, and preparation procedures. 

THE COSTS

For documents that are highly active and that need to be accessed by multiple people, digitising reduces costs and allows users the efficiency of accessing from anywhere, anytime. Information being used for downstream processing are often more cost effectively captured and input into relevant customer systems when stored as digital, rather than manual data. This is particularly effective when combined with technology driven decision making and the auto routing of documents (a process that automatically directs documents to the right person or department based on specific criteria) post-digitisation.

For documents that have long retention periods it will be cheaper in the long run to digitise them and destroy the original. However, documents that aren’t as important, and do not need to be accessed as often or kept for a long time, would be more expensive to digitise than to put in long term storage. This is why we suggest a smart, hybrid approach which provides the more cost-effective information management solution for customers by taking activity, length of retention and downstream processing requirements into account. 

SUSTAINABILITY

In terms of IT footprint, there is no real difference between digital and physical as both require systems and servers to maintain the service. Additionally, with both options the paper will be securely destroyed and recycled – it just happens sooner in the case of digitisation. 

One additional environmental impact of keeping paper records is that the documents require physical retrieval from storage facilities, which subsequently has further negative effect and contributes to a greater carbon footprint. Though one way of mitigating this is to have the document retrieved digitally. When a document is digitised, they can be accessed remotely regardless of the location . Furthermore, it is advised to digitise any documents that need specialist temperature-controlled environments, to avoid additional utility emissions. 

Consequently, physical storage offers no difference to digital if a document is not going to be active and does not need returning to the customer. Yet, for any documents that are expected to be retrieved more than once in the duration of their lifetime, digital offers a more sustainable and environmentally friendly outcome. 

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

When it comes to deciding storing documents electronically is safer security wise than with paper, it is a little more complex. Both options have differing implications and depend on the security measures involved and the level of digitisation. 

Although one of the main advantages of digitising is that accessing the information is a lot easier, it also means that it is likely to be easier for that information to be accessed or misused by malevolent individuals, particularly when compared to the likelihood of someone being able to physically break into a high security facility and access a specific box. Therefore, from a criminal security standpoint, physical storage is probably the safest option.

On the other hand, there is no back up when a document is kept just in physical form. If a document is lost or the box is destroyed prematurely, then that information is permanently lost. 

Taking all of this into consideration, there are inherent risks with both approaches, so having the appropriate standards and measures in place is important to ensure that all reasonable precautions have been taken. 

PRIORITISING DOCUMENTS

There are several factors that will determine which documents should be digitised and in what order of priority. Understanding the documents and associated relevance means we can then work with the customer to conduct an analysis and agree which would provide the most benefits by being digitised. These factors include:

• Budget and required ROI – digitisation requires an immediate upfront cost, so understanding a customer’s budget helps to determine whether physical or digital is the best option. 
• Considering the organisation’s information strategy and available digital maturity – if their processes and systems aren’t set up to handle the digital content/ output then there is no point digitising.
• The number of people who need access to those documents – it is more cost effective and efficient having a digital document if a lot of individuals/ teams need access, and even more so if they are remote workers.
• Level of activity and required access – the more active documents provide faster ROI as it removes the cost and time to physically deliver the original paper document each time. 
• Downstream BPO (business process outsourcing) and the impact on the next stage of processing the information- if the information needs to be available in further systems for processing or needs fast actioning by the customer’s team, having it available digitally speeds up the process and removes the need for manual data capture further downstream.
• Retention period – digitising a document has a higher upfront cost than storing it physically. Analysis of the length of time to realise an ROI of the digitisation in comparison to the document’s retention period will determine the most cost-effective solution. 
•  Information criticality – highly important business information may want to be digitised to ensure that it is backed up in case of damage/ loss of the original.
• Legal/ regulatory requirements – documents that must be retained physically, whether digitised or not, will require additional advantages from digitising to be needed to justify the additional cost.
• Change management – it’s about changing the culture as customers transition from using physical to digital information and the training of systems to access.

The prevailing consensus on whether digitising documents or keeping them, as physical paper is that it overtly depends on many factors. While going entirely paperless is not the best solution for everyone, it’s about finding the right balance and beginning the transition to a digital future can bring many advantages to your organisation. 

Read more of Restore’s case studies here: https://bit.ly/40LhK6Q