THE 2026 SAFETY RESET

Why Safety Systems failed you and why 2026 is the great reset for OHS

READ THIS FIRST

Safety reports still matter. Compliance still matters. For your compensation and job performance but we all know the truth.

In 2026, they will be fully automated.

If your safety program depends on humans manually creating reports after work is done, you are already operating behind reality.

That isn’t opinion. That’s physics.

Risk forms before the report exists. Injuries occur before the data is reviewed. Decisions are made before safety teams ever see the paperwork.

The industry knows this. It just hasn’t said it out loud yet.

We are.

If you believe safety lives in reports, this will make you uncomfortable.

If you know safety lives in the field, you already see where this is going.

If you believe safety lives in reports, this will make you uncomfortable.

If you know safety lives in the field, you already see where this is going.

THE PROBLEM NO ONE WANTS TO SAY CLEARLY

Safety reports do not fail because safety leaders are incompetent.

They fail because reports are artifacts of the past.

• Inspections freeze a moment that no longer exists

• Checklists document intention, not behavior

• Photos are staged after conditions have already changed

We then pretend those fragments represent a live, dynamic, high-risk operation.

They don’t.

This is not safety. This is safety theater.

WHY 2025 WAS THE BREAKING POINT

2025 exposed something the industry tried to ignore:

Consumer AI and office-grade tools were never built for safety.

They optimized:

• Language

• Summaries

• Communication

They did not optimize:

• Conditions

• Exposure

• Human behavior under pressure

You can’t prompt your way out of bad source data.And in safety, wrong once is one time too many.

That’s why AI stayed in the office in 2025.

2026 is when it leaves.

THE SHIFT THAT’S ALREADY UNDERWAY

There is a quiet transition happening right now:

From:

• Reports → Reality

• Lagging metrics → Live conditions

• Documentation → Intervention

This is not “AI for safety reports.”

This is AI replacing the need for safety reports as the primary control mechanism.

Reports become the byproduct.Not the system.

WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS

• Domain-trained safety intelligence

• Real-world field data, not internet data

• Systems that see work as it happens

• Insight delivered before exposure, not after injury

This is not a feature upgrade.

It is a category shift.

WHAT DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE

• AI trained on Reddit, Wikipedia, and generic content

• Open systems with uncontrolled data flow

• Tools that optimize communication instead of conditions

• Platforms that explain incidents weeks later

Those systems will still exist.

They just won’t stop injuries.

THE AGE OF “BEFORE”

Every serious safety failure shares the same flaw:

Insight arrived after it mattered.

The future of safety is simple:

See risk forming. Validate controls live. Intervene early.

Not someday. Not after review. Before.

2026 is the year the industry stops arguing about this and starts reorganizing around it.

WHY WE’RE SAYING THIS NOW

Because when this shift becomes obvious, everyone will claim they “always believed it.”

They didn’t.

We’re saying it early so the conversation changes before the market forces it.

That’s not marketing.That’s leadership.

AUTHOR

Joshua Jackson CEO and Creator, SafetyEHD

Former NASA engineer.

Former safety manager.

AI applied to operational safety since 2008.

In 2006, every rule was followed. Every report was correct. And a wall still nearly killed six people—including him.

Compliance didn’t stop physics. Paperwork didn’t slow gravity.

That moment defined this work.