2026 Predictions: Beyoncé retires, AI busts, Democrats lift weights
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.6 • 8.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As you fill out your own bingo card for what will or will not happen in 2026, join Brittany, NPR's tech correspondent Bobby Allyn, and NPR's political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. They are laying out the puzzle pieces of 2026 - from the politics of masculinity to the bubble of artificial intelligence to the end of Queen Bee - and piecing them together, so you know what to set your sights on for the next calendar year.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Fall in love with new music every Friday. |
| 0:02.8 | At All Songs Considered, that's NPR's Music Recommendation podcast, Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. |
| 0:12.1 | Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again. |
| 0:14.9 | Tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:22.4 | What is in and what is out for 2026? |
| 0:26.9 | I'll say what's in for me is actually making an effort. |
| 0:31.3 | Like when I go to daycare drop off, |
| 0:33.4 | instead of just throwing on a baseball cap and the scuzzy clothes at the top of the laundry pile, I'm actually trying to put on something that makes me look like a real person. That's really nice. I love that. What is out for you, Daniel? Using my phone in bed. I love that for you. What about you, Bobby? What's in and what's out for you? What's in for me are this new crop of L.A. social saunas that I really like. |
| 0:55.1 | Wait. |
| 0:55.3 | And Danielle thinks it's a crazy idea. But all over L.A. there's this new sort of movement where people are coming and drinking coffee and drinking tea and going in saunas and cold plunging. And they stay open late. And it's like a thing to do where you're not drinking and not at a bar. It's like a kind of a fun, relaxing third space. |
| 1:12.2 | I'm into it. |
| 1:13.0 | I'm into that. |
| 1:13.7 | I'm into that. |
| 1:14.3 | What's out for you? and it's like a thing to do where you're not drinking and not at a bar. It's like a kind of a fun, relaxing third space. |
| 1:12.1 | I'm into it. I'm into that. I'm into that. What's out for you? I thought for the longest time that when I'm on deadline that I could toggle between writing and concentrating and maintaining my like 45 group chats. Now I realize that I no longer can do that. So what's out for me is thinking that I have |
| 1:28.0 | the willpower to ignore a really fun text from a friend when I'm on deadline because I can't do it. |
| 1:35.3 | While everyone is starting their New Year's resolutions, it's been a minute, is giving the people |
| 1:39.9 | what they really want. Our 26 predictions. |
| 1:46.1 | And to help us out again, |
| 1:48.2 | we got NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. |
| 1:49.3 | Hey, always happy to be here. |
| 1:50.9 | And NPR correspondent |
... |
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