Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1542372
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 JANUARY 2026 LOOKING FORWARD 2026 Finding the will power to change Sandra Gauci Chairperson ADPD AFTER leading ADPD for almost three years, the challenges still are and remain generally the same—mainly, finding people who are both committed to the party ideals and have time available to dedicate to what seems a thankless job. Keeping up the enthusiasm is always a chal- lenge. Results achieved are not always aligned to feedback received, as quite a number of them, though in agreement with our ideas, get cold feet at the ballot box. The Constitutional Court case, which hopefully will reach some form of conclusion next January could possibly give some indication as to what the future has in store for our electoral system. To date, the electoral system is prejudiced against third parties. It has cost us blood and tears to get there but we did and now we are hoping against hope that we get a positive outcome. There are a lot of people who do not want to vote and yet are still hesitant in voting outside a two-party template—that will be our main chal- lenge in 2026. Getting people to trust you in- volves capillary work which needs to bring down years of tribalism. These people will not vote for us just because we are there on the ballot sheet. They will vote for us based on trust. At ADPD, we don't have the luxury of having people who are blindly devoted to us. We are the misfits of poli- tics and the pariah in a system which is bi-parti- san. Our main challenge as a party will be to work intensely on a personal level with each person in our district. It will always be a challenge. As regards the country, the challenges will be the obvious ones: Overpopulation, environment and traffic. These challenges are interlinked. The country has failed in attracting investment which is based on services but still keeps selling parts of the country to foreigners. The tiring work of pro- testing against the destruction of what is left of this country will continue, especially since now that it is reaching village cores. Development is not restricted to tourist areas anymore. No lo- cality is being spared and none will remain the same. And who will build these horrors? Obvi- ously, imported labour from third world coun- tries. The mere importation of such labour is a thriving business in itself that nobody wants to delve into. But greed needs to be fed and these people are the perfect scapegoats in this equation of exploitation. Traffic will always be a challenge, especially since nobody wants to take the bull by its horns and consider the car as a luxury. Even the prime minister gave up quite easily and dismissed it all by saying that Maltese love their cars. I love cake too but that doesn't mean I can have it everyday for every meal. Votes and populism are more im- portant for the main parties, it seems, rather than solving the actual problems. And since social media is in fashion and domi- nates the agenda more than any backboned lead- er would, we, as a nation, will keep on grumbling and expressing our woes on Facebook, while comfortably sleeping with our car parked in front of our house. To change things around we need the will powe To change things around we need the will power to do so. We aren't there yet. I wish you all a happy 2026 Navigating THE age of Artificial Intelli- gence is here. AI has become embedded in our daily lives, from workplaces and smart- phones to video games, cars, social media, healthcare and fi- nancial services. Its rapid adoption and ongo- ing evolution mean the tech- nology is in a constant state of change, making it difficult at times to keep up with. AI expert Alexiei Dingli ex- plained AI became widely avail- able and increasingly normal in everyday work, but adoption was uneven. Many people tried it occasionally, a smaller group used it weekly, and an even smaller group used it daily, and this varied a lot by role and sec- tor, he said. In the US, during the third quarter of 2025, 45% of employ- ees said they used AI at least a few times a year, but only about 10% used it daily. "[This] is a big difference between 'avail- able' and 'fully integrated'," Dingli explained. Research suggests the share of work hours spent using gener- ative AI rose from 4.1% in late 2024 to 5.7% by August 2025, which is meaningful growth. But where is AI headed in 2026? Your friendly AI assistant According to Dingli, the next big thing in 2026 is not smart- er chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini, but software that can run parts of a job end to end. "Think of AI moving from being a helpful assistant to be- ing a junior colleague who can prepare work, check it, and hand you something close to finished. You tell it the goal and the rules, and it takes care of the steps in between," Dingli said. This is not only powerful, but also practical, he added. "It saves time on coordination, chasing emails, filing systems, and repeating routine deci- sions. The real shift is that hu- mans stop micromanaging tasks and start supervising outcomes. That is where the productivity jump will come from, and it is also where responsibility must stay clearly with people." AI you direct During 2025 major changes came to the platforms we have known and integrated into workplaces for years like Out- look and Google Workspace, with built-in assistants in email and documents rather than separate websites or apps. But in 2026, we will see the further integration of AI in existing technologies as well as new technologies designed around it. Alexiei Dingli thinks we will see both, but the more inter- esting breakthroughs are new technologies being built around AI rather than simply adding AI to old tools. "Existing platforms like email KARL AZZOPARDI kazzopardi@mediatoday.com.mt