Quarterly trend report: What CEOs talked about in Q1 2026
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About the report
The Quarterly trend report: What CEOs talked about in Q1 2026 is part of IoT Analytics’ ongoing coverage of the IoT and related technology markets. The information presented in this report is based on a database of 120,000+ earnings calls of US-listed companies from Q1 2019 through Q1 2026. Every quarter, IoT Analytics analyzes trends emerging from earnings calls and presents findings for the most recent quarter. The purpose is to inform other market participants about the current focus of CEOs and companies. To ensure objectivity, IoT Analytics did not alter or supplement any results and did not deliberately exclude any earnings calls.
Key rising themes in Q1 2026
- Iran
- Physical/agentic AI
- OpenClaw
- SaaSpocalypse
Key declining themes in Q1 2026
- Tariffs and uncertainty
- AI bubble
5 critical questions for CEOs
1. Are we stress-testing our supply chain against a prolonged Iran oil shock?
Iran mentions surged 550% in Q1, the fastest-growing keyword in the dataset. Brent crude rose 49% in March alone, with physical shortages expected through June. Map your exposure across energy costs, raw materials, and logistics now, before mid-April disruptions hit.
2. Is our business model resilient to the “SaaSpocalypse”?
CEOs are increasingly concerned that AI will commoditize traditional software and destroy seat-based pricing models. You should evaluate whether your organization needs to shift toward hybrid or tokenized pricing models to survive this industry-wide transition.
3. How are we securing our electronics supply chain against the AI-driven “memory shortage”?
AI cloud service providers are attempting to lock up the global DRAM and NAND supply through late 2026. With memory shortages already driving up input costs for industrial markets, you must validate that your hardware and device roadmaps are resilient to significant intra-quarter price increases.
4. Are we prepared for the security and compliance risks of OpenClaw?
OpenClaw surged from zero to 0.4% of earnings calls in a single quarter. CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, and Gen Digital all flagged it as a major new attack surface. Assess whether your security posture covers agentic AI frameworks that employees are already adopting, often without IT oversight.
5. Are we building toward physical AI, or just digital AI?
Physical AI mentions more than doubled (+116%) in Q1, with APAC companies mentioning it twice as often as EMEA or North America. NVIDIA, Qualcomm, FedEx, and Infosys are all framing it as the next frontier. Evaluate whether your AI roadmap extends into the physical world—robotics, autonomous logistics, edge inference, or remains purely software-side.
Table of Contents
Quarterly Trend Report: What CEOs talked about in Q1 2026
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- Executive summary
- Pulse check: The current economic environment
- What CEOs talked about in Q1 2026
- Importance of selected topics in earnings calls since Q1 2019
- 3.1 AI
3.2 AI bubble
3.3 Emerging topics: OpenClaw & SaaSpocalypse
3.4 AI Agents & Physical AI
3.5 Deep dive: Sector overview and selected topics
- Manufacturing deep dives
- 4.1 Manufacturing: What manufacturing CEOs talked about
- 4.2 Manufacturing: Current challenges
- Sentiment & outlook by vertical and region
- Appendix
Questions answered
- How is the overall economic environment in Q1 2026?
- What are some of the upcoming trends that CEOs talk about?
- What keywords were most prevalent in the earnings calls in the last quarter?
- What were the key themes that CEOs discussed related to the main keywords?
- Which themes have lost importance in the last few years?
- What are the upcoming trends in different sectors?
Related reading
A research article based on this report: What CEOs talked about in Q1 2026: Iran war, physical/agentic AI, OpenClaw, and the SaaSpocalypse
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