The TV world is an exciting one, with the various major brands and outsiders constantly one-upping each other with new screen technologies, intelligent operating systems and low prices. And so as we enter the new year, people are naturally asking: what could 2026 bring for TVs?
There were some great changes in 2025: Mini-LEDs became cheaper, OLEDs gained some new features and companies continued to roll out some useful software enhancement features. Our list of the best TVs saw some shake-ups. But I’m expecting 2026 to be even bigger, thanks to a brand-new kind of screen technology that’ll hit shelves.
However every rose has its thorn and not every upgrade will be… well, an upgrade. I’m expecting great hardware, but some changes to the way TV software is handled in 2025 suggest it could be quite a frustrating year to buy a smart TV. More on that later.
So let’s take a look at my big 2026 TV predictions, both at new hardware and software that could be coming.
The big new advance: RGB TVs
The big new TV tech as 2026 begins is going to be RGB TVs. Don’t expect it to be called that exactly, with each brand having its own name, but if you see Micro RGB or RGB Mini-LED or micro-RGB, just know it’s referring to the same thing.
This new panel technology works like LED and Mini-LED TVs: there’s a layer of small lights which illuminates a second layer of pixels to show you your image. The difference with RGB TVs is that instead of those small lights being white they’re red, green and blue, and this allows for the display of a much wider gamut of color, better contrast and an increased maximum brightness.
We saw a few RGB TVs launched in 2025, but they were giant and expensive concept models. It’s in 2026 that we’re expecting to see market-ready models, coming from most of the major TV players in a range of sizes and prices.
With all the major TV players planning some RGB TVs, it’s likely to be the big ground fought over in the big TV shows as well as in sales and our own buying guides, and competition is always a good thing for the consumer (ie, us).
Plus, a smaller but still-important perk of RGB screens are their energy efficiency, which is reported to be greater than on LED or Mini-LED. Who doesn’t want their bills a bit lower?
8K TVs… sorta
While 8K TVs have always been a niche market for very specific use cases, there’s a chance that in 2026, a change could blow the doors wide open.
The ‘change’ is that AI upscaling could become commonplace, something a few analysts and fans are hoping for. In theory, you could buy a TV that lets you play 4K content, and upgrades it to 8K for you. This wouldn’t be ‘true’ 8K, as it’d only support native 4K, but you’d still see all those extra pixels.
While there’s no guarantee that this will become commonplace in 2026, Samsung did show off tech that achieved this in 2025, so it could be on the horizon. When it’s readily-accessible on affordable TVs, then consumers will follow.
Anything new with OLEDs?
With the best OLED TVs being some of the most popular sets on the market for years now — for reviewers, if not cost-conscious buyers — you might be wondering what 2026 could bring for this front-lit kind of screen tech.
The answer is probably ‘not much’. Most of the big TV brands tend to refresh their OLED lines annually, so there will definitely be plenty of new picks, but the differences are generally quite minor and iterative.
Many of 2025’s sets brought slight tweaks like anti-glare screens, improved video upscaling and slightly higher refresh rates. All nice upgrades for people buying a set, but nothing that’d make you drop your 2024 set to get the new features. And that’ll probably be the same in 2026: nothing that’ll make you say “whOahLED”. If anything big does arrive, it’ll be wider support for Dolby Vision 2.
’Concept’ TVs
There are a few TV markets that have been simmering for a few years now, that’ll definitely continue into 2026. These probably won’t explode into prominence so I don’t want to spend too much time on them, but they’ll continue to advance in terms of technology and popularity so it’s worth mentioning them.
A few brands have shown off wireless TVs, which use no cables so look classy in your home, and ‘lifestyle’ TVs, which are disguised as a painting or other item of furniture until used (Samsung’s The Frame is the best-known version). Expect a few more of each in 2026, though I’d be surprised if we see any truly cheap or consumer-ready models.
Rollable and transparent TVs are even further behind. We’ll definitely see one or two in the big tech shows, but they’ll likely be concepts instead of affordable options that everyone will be buying come Black Friday.
A big advance in 2025 was the advent of 165Hz TVs, allowing for a faster refresh than 144Hz models. However I don’t expect another frame rate upgrade to come in 2026; after all, fast speeds like this are largely just the domain of PCs for now, and we’ll need consoles that support above 120Hz to release before they have a chance of becoming mainstream.
AI: assistants or irritants?
For a few years now, TVs have had AI features to increase the frame rate, tweak colors and balance audio, all in the name of maintaining quality and consistency between everything you watch. These features have been around a lot longer than the ‘AI’ buzzword, and so you might have been enjoying them for years without realizing.
However a new trend that’s going to pick up steam in 2026 is actual AI assistants, or chat bots, popping up on your smart TV Home Screen. This has actually already begun, with LG forcing many of its TV owners to have an unremovable Copilot widget on their Home Screen… before almost immediately flip-flopping and letting users remove it.
With tech companies trying to force you to use their AI chat bots across every gadget you have, it’s natural that the TV is falling victim too. Google TV gained Gemini in September 2025 and it’s likely that TVOS will gain the upgraded Siri AI when that launches at some point in 2026. As brands try hard to make these assistants ubiquitous, we’ll likely see them gain more and more prominence in TV operating systems.
Or, we might not. As shown by the LG debacle, when backlash saw the company quickly backtrack, consumers still aren’t sold on these machine-learning chat bots. Brands haven’t successfully made the case for these tools making life easier, and on your TV, it could end up just adding one more step before finding that show or movie you want to watch. For me, browsing to find something to watch is part of the joy, and I don’t want a bot to take that away from me — especially if, like Gemini and Copilot, it’s insistent on feeding me blatantly wrong information, getting woefully confused at basic information, and summoning itself when it’s really not wanted.
Ads-addled software
Another user interface prediction, and another negative prediction, going hand-in-hand.
If you feel like you see more commercials while watching TV, that’s not just you. I’ve been covering streaming entertainment for years, and it constantly feels like I’m spending less time actually watching a show, and more time waiting for adverts to finish. More and more streaming platforms are launching ad-enabled tiers, and even smart TV interfaces aren’t free from the ocean of advertising everywhere you go. Just ask Fire TV users.
A big new piece of tech jargon expected to be big in 2026 is ‘agentic AI’, or complex artificial intelligences which go beyond the simple response-based chat bots and predict what you’ll want and when you’ll want it. This is already tipped as being a big new addition to TV operating systems: if you regularly tune in at a certain time, it’ll know it’s to watch a certain show, or if you’ve got a tradition of Sunday night horrors, it’ll pick up on this. In theory, this will mean your TV can suggest to you the show, movie or sport you were already planning to watch, saving you loads of time in browsing listings to find it.
In practice, this will probably end up serving you more ads. Partly for shows and movies you might want to see, but partly for products and services. Your viewing data is important for advertisers, and with personalised ads becoming commonplace beyond the internet browser and on TV user interfaces, agentic AI will superpower advertisers’ ability to get your eyes on their commercials. And, of course, make watching TV an even more irritating experience. Thanks, AI.
As of late 2025, this is already happening on certain streaming services, with Prime Video ads trying to get you to buy straight from the commercial and Netflix giving you massive branded banners every time you pause, and we’re seeing the same happen to TV user interfaces. But some brands have been resisting and they’ll probably become even popular as people try to escape the ads; Roku and Apple pop to mind.
