Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Outsourcing strategies in 2026 are being shaped by persistent disruption. Geopolitical uncertainty, major service outages, talent disruption, and post COVID-19 consolidation initiatives are driving a renewed focus on resilience in outsourcing operations and contracts.

The NCAA has ushered in a major shift in college sports commercial sponsorship: a shift that has the potential to reshape sponsorship strategies at every Division I school. Starting August 1, 2026, teams at Division I schools will be permitted to display commercial patches on uniforms, apparel, and equipment, subject to certain size and number restrictions.

Legal departments and contract teams are now often under pressure to move faster, provide value, and streamline processes all while contracts increase in length and complexity to address changes in technology (e.g., artificial intelligence) and laws (e.g., various privacy and regulatory requirements). The good news is that meaningful contract streamlining does not require a full rewrite or oversimplification of existing templates. Small, targeted changes can improve speed to contract, clarity of the agreement, and usability for both the legal/contract team and business team stakeholders.

Please join us on Thursday, February 5, 2026, from 12:00–1:00 pm ET as Morgan Lewis partners Don Shelkey and Heather Egan explore how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how business operate, innovate, and deliver value. The Tech & Sourcing team will dive into legal, commercial, and other strategic issues shaping AI adoption with topics ranging from contracting to compliance.

In an era defined by economic volatility, supply chain disruptions, rapid technological change, and geopolitical risk, outsourcing remains an attractive strategy for businesses seeking efficiency and scalability. At the same time, uncertainty has fundamentally changed what clients expect from their outsourcing agreements. Rigid, long-term contracts that assume stable market conditions are increasingly misaligned with business reality.

ISG’s latest index highlights a technology services and software market that is increasingly defined by cloud momentum and AI-driven investment shifts. While headline growth remains strong, the underlying dynamics point to a more selective and strategic buying environment as enterprises head into 2026.

As demand for data-intensive and AI-driven workloads continues to grow, customers are increasingly encountering constraints on cloud compute resources—particularly specialized processors and region-specific capacity. These market dynamics raise a fundamental question for customers and their advisors: will the promised compute capacity actually be available when it is needed?

As the sports industry looks ahead to 2026, sponsorship agreements are becoming more complex, more strategic, and more closely scrutinized. We sat down with Doneld “Don” Shelkey, a leading sports sponsorship and commercial agreements lawyer at our firm, to discuss what he’s seeing in the market and what sponsors and rights holders should be thinking about now.

As demand for artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and cloud-based infrastructure grows, organizations are entering increasingly complex agreements for compute capacity across public cloud, private infrastructure, and specialized providers. Join our Tech & Sourcing Webinar Series on Thursday, February 26, at 12:00 pm ET/11:00 am CT for our next presentation—Capacity Frenzy: Key Considerations in Procurement Agreements. This session will consider some of the specific challenges of this market, including the surge of new entrants, constraints on supply, and the need for many participants to finance these arrangements.

As AI continues to reshape technology transactions, deal lawyers have been compelled to revisit longstanding allocations of risk, revisit boilerplate, and develop new contracting mechanics to address novel uncertainty. While the core goals of technology deals remain the same—facilitating commercial outcomes and protecting the business—AI introduces distinctive pressure points across intellectual property, data, regulatory exposure, and liability frameworks.