Halon's hot take on email trends in 2026

Here’s our hot take on where email is headed in 2026, shaped by insights from the Halon team.

Every few years, someone confidently declares that email is dead. And every year, email quietly proves them wrong.

As we begin 2026, one thing is clear: email isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving. We asked our team of email experts what they see coming next based on what’s already changing inside the global email ecosystem. Here are their predictions.

Email won't die. It will double down. 

Across the team, the message was consistent. Email will remain one of the most important communication channels in 2026.

“Email will once again fail to die, despite all predictions to the contrary…” says Kieran Cooper. Uli Jansen echoes that sentiment: “Email will stay to be one of, if not, the most relevant communication channel.”

Scott Habicht adds, “Email will remain the most dominant channel for business-to-consumer communication in 2026. New platforms will continue to emerge claiming to replace it, but none will match email’s reach, reliability, and return on investment.”

And as paid and social channels become more volatile, Linnea Lindgren expects email to become even more strategic: “Brands will treat email as core owned-media infrastructure, where reliability and control become a competitive advantage.” 

The takeaway: Email isn’t legacy. It’s core infrastructure.

Consolidation accelerates across providers and platforms

Email is thriving, but who runs it will continue to change.

“As the cost and effort required to manage email security continues to rise, there will be continued consolidation amongst mailbox providers, with more, smaller domains outsourcing their inbound mail operation,” says Kieran.

Simon Tyler adds: “There will be further consolidation in the SaaS email security space. Expect some big acquisitions.” From a regional standpoint, Simon also notes: “The EU will increasingly prefer non-US software and services.”

Meanwhile, Carlos Pereira predicts European ESPs will expand beyond their traditional borders: “European ESPs will start looking more outside of their own country and language borders.”

The takeaway: Email infrastructure is becoming more centralized, more regionalized, and more strategic.

Authentication becomes non-negotiable (and legacy systems will break)

2026 is shaping up to be a tipping point for senders who still rely on outdated authentication or access methods.

Anders Berggren predicts: “Email authentication requirements (like DMARC) will be increasingly enforced, and legacy systems will start breaking more visibly.”

Carlos points to concrete shifts already underway:

• Deprecation of POP3 from other players now that Google has made the move
• Basic IMAP auth deprecation and more movement to OAuth 2
• DKIM2 rollout and adoption

Domain reputation will also come under sharper focus, pushing deliverability from a technical concern into a business-critical one.

The takeaway: Authentication is no longer ‘best practice’.  It’s mandatory.

Email infrastructure modernizes… finally

Another strong theme across the team: legacy email infrastructure is being left behind.

Scott notes: “More senders will move away from legacy email infrastructure toward modern, cloud-native architectures that are easier to operate, scale more predictably, and lower overall cost.”

Anders ties this to broader engineering practices: “More email infrastructure is migrated to DevOps-friendly, policy-as-code, and elastically scaled platforms, harmonizing with how other services are deployed.”

The takeaway: Email is finally being treated like modern software. Because it is.

AI becomes unavoidable and trust will be tested

AI’s role in email will grow rapidly in 2026, on both sides of the inbox. On the client side, Anders predicts: “Increased use of AI and ML in email clients; automatically categorizing and summarizing incoming emails.”

But with that comes risk. Kieran offers a cautionary prediction: “There will be a major incident where an AI summary of an email gets the content very wrong, causing someone harm. This will likely result in a legal challenge that goes nowhere, but sparks significant debate about how much AI can be trusted.”

Still, AI will be too valuable to ignore. Scott notes: “The most successful email platforms will integrate AI in subtle but meaningful ways, improving deliverability, automation, and operational efficiency rather than replacing human decision-making.”

Chaitanya Chinta points to the growing role of intelligence in email platforms. “As complexity increases, platforms will rely more on interpreting patterns across volume, engagement, and feedback to help teams make better sending decisions.”

The takeaway: AI will shape email, but blind trust in it won’t last.

Engagement metrics shift as AMP and BIMI grow

With tracking pixels under constant attack and privacy protections increasing, traditional open rates are becoming less reliable. To compensate, Carlos predicts: “An increase of senders using AMP to create dynamic emails for Gmail, as open rates become less reliable.” He also predicts an “Increased adoption of BIMI.” But Simon adds a warning: “If AMP ever really takes off, expect AMP spam and malware.”

This is also where trust becomes visible. Chaitanya notes that “as spear-phishing and impersonation attacks increase, recipients will rely more on visible cues in the inbox to decide what to open. BIMI, DKIM, and DMARC will increasingly help legitimate senders stand out and earn attention.”

The takeaway: Trust signals will increasingly determine who gets opened and who gets ignored. 

Security threats grow more sophisticated

As AI improves defensive tooling, it also empowers attackers. “Enhanced AI capabilities will result in even more sophisticated phishing and fraud,” warns Uli.

This reinforces Linnea’s broader point: “In 2026, email strategy will be shaped as much by risk management as by growth. Deliverability, compliance, and sender reputation will be recognized as business-critical safeguards, not just technical hygiene.”

The takeaway: Email security will remain one of the defining forces shaping the channel’s future.

Email as critical infrastructure

Across every prediction, one theme stands out: email is no longer just a marketing channel or a messaging tool. The inbox is becoming more regulated, consolidated, automated, and high-stakes. That shift puts pressure on the infrastructure behind email.

If 2026 is the year email becomes even more critical infrastructure, the question is simple.

Is your email infrastructure ready for what’s next?

Meet our team of email experts