The commercial drone industry is heading into the new year with plenty of new challenges, some of which were born in the previous year, which brought with it the promise of commercial BVLOS flights for a variety of operations and AI being more readily adopted to streamline workflows. To finish it all off, right before the end of the year, the FCC took action to add foreign drones and components to its covered list, throwing the industry in the U.S. into a state of worry and some confusion.

This recent ruling has bled into the new year and will continue to be a big topic of conversation, especially while we learn more about the tangible implications of the decision. While the FCC’s ruling does not affect foreign drones and components that already exist and are in use in the United States, it does affect new and unreleased drone models and components from foreign countries. With this rule, agencies operating in the U.S. will be limited to the drone models that are currently available or those approved by the executive branch of the U.S. government, potentially hindering the growth of their drone operations of the future. This will have a large effect on the public safety sector, which relies heavily on foreign drones in their current programs, among other sectors. Even though they can continue to use the equipment they already have, it will prove difficult to upgrade or fix the technology with this new rule.

On the other side of this ruling, it’s very likely that the United States will see greater efforts toward manufacturing drones and components stateside. Many experts say this is not something that can happen overnight and will take many years for manufacturing to be fully established and profitable in the U.S.

On a brighter note, it’s intended that the final rule of the Part 108 BVLOS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be released in the spring of this year, or potentially later due to the last government shut down. If this does come in a timely manner, 2026 will be a pivotal year for many sectors of the industry. Enabling long-distance BVLOS flights will be a major milestone for the advancement of drone technology and will bring many benefits to the communities it will serve. Again, we see this largely in public safety efforts, where drones have aided in search and rescues, medical deliveries, and more.

“The FAA's release of Part 108 will be a big step forward. Having the capabilities to lift and deliver critical and life-saving tools, whole blood, medical devices, and other supplies by BVLOS flights will increase public safety effectiveness.” said Michael Leo, captain at FDNY Robotics.

Along with the benefits of this innovation, however, will come struggles around public acceptance. If the Part 108 NPRM final rule comes out on time, drones will most likely fly in places they haven’t before, sparking questions or uncertainty from the public. Drone industry experts will need to be ready to educate the public on these operations and the benefits they are providing to help reduce fear and increase public acceptance.

Lastly, many believe that 2026 will be the year where  AI is integrated into more operations than ever before. In 2025, the industry dove headfirst into testing AI platforms to help streamline their operations and free up humans for more important work. Now that these platforms have proved their value by saving companies thousands of hours in human labor, it’s likely that we will see an increase in AI use and adoption across the industry.

“I think that GeoAI is going to start blowing up. People just think of chatbots when they hear AI. But there is visual AI as well that can analyze what it sees. We capture a ton of imagery in the drone world, and it's going to be amazing to have that automatically analyzed.” Explained Ben Stocker, senior construction technologist at Skender.

“We could automatically segment out all particular items shown on a site, search for where work was completed, look for potential safety issues. These types of analysis can be done from a single image, an orthomosaic map, or even a 3D gaussian splat!”

Considering all of these challenges and opportunities, these trends suggest that while the commercial drone industry faces meaningful headwinds, it is also entering one of its most transformative eras yet. As BVLOS operations become more accessible and AI reshapes how data is captured and analyzed, drones will move further from niche tools into essential infrastructure. If industry leaders can navigate regulatory uncertainty and earn public trust, 2026 could mark a turning point in how uncrewed systems deliver real-world value at scale.