The Cloud Pod

336: We Were Right (Mostly), 2026: The New Prophecies

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Welcome to episode 335 of The Cloud Pod, where the forecast is always cloudy! Welcome to the first show of 2026, and it’s a full house, too! Justin, Jonathan, Ryan,  and Matt are all here to reflect on 2025, plus bring you their predictions for 2026.

Let’s get started! 

Titles we almost went with this week
  • SQL Me Maybe: AlloyDB Gets Chatty With Your Database **OpenAI
  • SELECT * FROM natural_language WHERE accuracy LIKE ‘100%’ **Anthropic
  • etcd You Were Worried About Database Limits: CloudWatch Has Your Back
  • CSV You Later: Looker Adds Drag-and-Drop Data Uploads
  • AWS Spots an Opportunity to Manage Your Container Costs
  • EKS Network Policies: No More IP Address Whack-a-Mole
  • AWS Security Hub Splits: It’s Not You, It’s CSPM
  • Spot On: ECS Finally Manages Your Cheapest Compute
  • TOON Squad: DigitalOcean’s New Format Makes JSON Look Bloated
  • The Price is Wrong: AWS Breaks Two Decades of Downward Pricing Tradition
  • Show Your Work: Why AI-Generated Code Without Tests is Just Expensive Spam
  • No More Agent Orange: Google Simplifies VM Extension Deployment
  • AWS Discovers Prices Can Go Both Ways, Raises GPU Costs 15 Percent
  • Sovereignty Washing: When Your European Cloud Still Answers to Uncle Sam
  • Agent Builder Gets a Memory Upgrade: Google’s AI Finally Remembers Where It Put Its Keys
  • Ctrl+F for the Future: A year-end Scorecard & Next-Gen Bets
  • AI Agents, GPU Prices, and The best of the Cloud Pod 2025
  • Beyond the Hype: The Cloud Pods Definitive 2025 Year in Review
  • Apocalypse Now… What? Our 2026 Forecast

    •  

    Follow Up 

    01:27 RYAN’S PREDICTIONS

    Prediction
    Status
    Notes
    Quick LLM models for individuals
    ACCURATE
    Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct, GLM-4-9B-0414, and Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct—each chosen for an outstanding balance of performance and computational efficiency, making them ideal for edge AI deployment. A new AI inference application called Inferencer allows even modest Apple Mac computers to run the largest open-source LLMs.
    AI at the edge natively (Lambda-esque)
    ACCURATE
    Akamai launched a new Inference Cloud product for edge AI using Nvidia’s Blackwell 6000 GPUs in 17 cities. AWS IoT Greengrass with Lambda functions for edge logic. “Edge AI allows for instant decision-making where it matters most—close to the data source.”
    Cloud native security mesh multi-cloud
    UNCLEAR
    Service mesh technologies continue to evolve (Istio, Linkerd), but I didn’t find a breakthrough “app-to-app at the edge” security mesh product announcement in 2025. This one needs more specific evidence.

    Ryan Score: 2/3

    02:25 MATTHEW’S PREDICTIONS

    Prediction
    Status
    Notes
    FOCUS adopted by Snowflake or Databricks
    ACCURATE
    FOCUS version 1.2 was ratified on May 29, 2025. Three new providers announced support: Alibaba Cloud, Databricks, and Grafana. Databricks officially adopted FOCUS!
    AI security/ethical standard (SOC or ISO)
    ACCURATE
    ISO 42001 is the first international standard outlining requirements for AI governance. Major companies achieving certification in 2025: Automation Anywhere is among the first 100 companies worldwide to earn ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification. Anthropic also achieved ISO 42001 certification.
    Amazon deprecates 5+ services (WorkMail bonus)
    ACCURATE (no bonus)
    19 services are mothballed, four are being sunset, and one is end of its supported life. Deprecated services include CodeCommit, Cloud9, S3 Select, CloudSearch, SimpleDB, Forecast, Data Pipeline, QLDB, Snowball Edge, and more. WorkMail NOT deprecated – WorkDocs was (April 2025), but WorkMail remains active.

    Matthew Score: 3/3

    03:22 JONATHAN’S PREDICTIONS

    Prediction
    Status
    Notes
    Company claims AGI achieved
    ACC
    ...more
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    The Cloud PodBy Justin Brodley, Jonathan Baker, Ryan Lucas and Matt Kohn
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