There are a few weeks left before the new year, and this is a great time for planning next steps and setting ambitious goals. One of the first steps in this process is to research trends that have been visible in 2025 and are 100% guaranteed to continue to impact in 2026. Productivity is a key value for people worldwide because everyone wants to work more effectively and optimize their time at work as well as in their personal lives.

Today, we have many tools that can help us be more productive and automate repetitive tasks, which is why mobile apps for boosting productivity are popular and have a place on every mobile phone. We took a look at how productivity apps are changing and what people want from them. At iScanner, we watch trends, and I want to share our predictions for how productivity apps will change in 2026.

The use of AI becomes the basis for any productivity application

Over the last three years, AI has touched every aspect of our lives. Here’s what ChatOn found after researching AI chatbot use: about 22% of Americans use them multiple times per day, 14% once a day, and 36% a few times per week. These research results show that we’re getting used to interacting with AI in our daily lives and use it for help with a wide range of tasks, from generating client emails to making shopping lists. That’s why mobile app developers implement AI in productivity apps—to enrich product features and automate tasks at a higher level, even without explicitly mentioning AI.

This year, Anthropic’s Claude chatbot released a new functionality that lets users generate fully functional Excel spreadsheets, Word docs, PowerPoint slides, and PDFs from prompts. This feature runs code behind the scenes and makes downloadable files in minutes. At the same time, Google continues to actively integrate AI into its core products, from search and Gmail to smart recommendations on YouTube.

Context-aware automation is the new standard for mobile applications

To improve the user experience, productivity apps analyze users’ data, enabling them to customize workflows and automate repetitive tasks. Collecting time, geolocation, connected devices, behavior, calendars, and routines to automatically trigger actions. Thanks to that, apps have transformed from a "manual utility" to a "proactive assistant."

These innovations have had a double effect. On the one hand, users spend less time performing tasks, yet are more productive. On the other hand, automation reduces cognitive load because actions are performed with less effort. For companies, this means increased frequency of use, deeper scenarios, stickiness, and upselling. Typical use cases include: automatic home/work modes, smart file management, notification adaptation, and energy profiles. This year’s leading productivity app, Tasker, uses AI to automate setting up routines and widgets, making the process less manual. Moreover, AI in Tasker is conversational, allowing users to give the AI instructions using voice prompts for initial asks as well as refinement.

Personalization is reaching a new level

Users of productivity apps value the feeling of control over work and personal tasks, which is why personalization is such an important part of the user experience in this niche. Apps adapt their interfaces, modules, notifications, prompt frequency, and element layouts based on user interactions. Some examples of this are automatic productivity modes, personalized dashboards, smart feature recommendations, and the ability to hide unused features.

This goes beyond themes—it’s dynamic configuration based on user habits. This type of personalization is called ultra-personalization and helps users feel less frustrated. One of the brightest examples of an app with ultra-personalization is Notion. The app and web extension allow users to select custom colors for the sidebar, top bar, and background, creating an environment that’s truly customized. Also, users can choose any font installed on their device to use with Notion, ensuring faster loading and endless typographic possibilities. Users can even set headings to match the body text for a cohesive design.

Cross-platform continuity is a necessity

Hybrid and remote jobs require users to work on different devices and under varying conditions. Mobile apps adapt to this requirement and with cross-platform access. Work is synced across smartphones, PCs, tablets, cars, and smart watches, so users can pick up where they left off without missing a beat. Apps accomplish this cross-platform access by copying and pasting between devices, utilizing shared storage buffers, synchronous notifications, and providing remote access to mobile functions.

As an example, consider the cross-platform capabilities of iScanner, an award-winning app for scanning and editing documents. Users can scan invoices or agreements with their phones in the office, continue to work and edit the scanned document on their laptop over a bite at the cafe, and sign the same documents on their tablet once they’re home for the evening. All documents are saved in the cloud and are available to work on at any time. Users can also turn off file syncing and work with documents on only one device.

Users prefer to use voice to manage apps

Sometimes productivity looks like a person with 7 hands, and people often need to do several things at once. Not everyone is good at task switching, but the process is easier when users can use their voices for managing apps and keep their hands free for other tasks. Mobile app developers understand this reality and implement voice-first UX. Speech becomes the primary or equal mode of interaction, without activation words and understanding intentions rather than commands. This is important for use when driving, playing sports, for accessibility, and when multitasking.

In November 2025, OpenAI announced a big update to its Voice mode. It’s no longer a separate interface; users can now access ChatGPT Voice right inside their chat. That means users will be able to converse with the chatbot and view its responses, including things like shared images, as they talk. This makes communication with chatbots feel more natural.

Apps are paying more attention to accessibility

App management by voice is related to another trend that broadens human possibilities. We’ve watched as apps have developed special features to improve the accessibility of their products. People with eye health problems or with limited mobility can use phones for daily routine tasks if developers incorporate special modes or features. We expect this trend to continue because 16% of the world’s population suffers from serious disabilities, according to the World Health Organisation.

But accessibility is not just for people with disabilities, but also for older people who face different issues using technology. A good example of accessibility upgrades is Uber. This year, it launched Senior accounts and Simple mode, designed to make the Uber app more accessible and intuitive for older adults. It offers a simplified interface with larger text and reduced complexity, allowing full account control with a more accessible design.

Privacy is a hot topic for all mobile applications

Frequent user data leaks and a general distrust of large corporations have led to users becoming more concerned about data security and privacy. Because of this, applications are actively implementing additional security measures, like local data, minimal permissions, end-to-end encryption, and transparent policies. This gives users a sense of control and security, especially when working with passwords, files, their camera, and mail.

The rapidly growing app Forma, a PDF editor with AI capabilities, offers users the option to protect their documents by adding a PIN to folders and PDFs and setting decoy passwords that show unimportant files whenever necessary.

Many users search for private alternatives to well-known apps. For example, the note-taking app Joplin has become popular due to its being open-source, and its code is publicly available for anyone to inspect. The developer community has verified that Joplin doesn’t collect data or add suspicious features.

There are many more productivity app trends we could discuss, but I wanted to highlight the most important ones from my point of view. These trends will impact the niche in 2026 and may continue to impact the way we use mobile apps for even longer. As you can see, not only does AI determine the development of productivity apps, but it also offers benefits like personalization and safety, ideas that are worth your attention.