The 2026 Service Research Priorities: AI-Driven Discovery,Interdisciplinary Influence Dynamics,and the “Interactive Service Scholarship Incubator” for Personalized Priorities

This article presents the 2026 Service Research Priorities (SRPs), developed via a hybrid AI–human agenda-setting approach. We construct large-scale concept networks from more than 10,500 service-related articles in core service journals and Financial Times (FT) 50 outlets, and apply machine-learning link prediction to identify high-probability, but underexplored, concept pairs. Fifteen forward-looking themes emerge that fall into four topical clusters: (a) Human–AI Agency, Interactions, and Service Reconfiguration; (b) AI-Enabled Omnichannel Engagement and Ecosystem Orchestration; (c) Responsible, Inclusive, and Resilient AI Service Systems; and (d) Psychological Dynamics of Service Experiences. Comparing the themes’ relevance in the service outlets vis-à-vis the FT50 journals helps identify where service research currently leads, where it imports from adjacent disciplines, and where cross-fertilization is most promising. Furthermore, we reflect our themes against the 2021 SRPs, distinguishing “emerging,” “evolved,” and “continuing” priorities. Importantly, we also survey the Journal of Service Research leadership to further calibrate and enrich the AI-derived SRPs. Next, we introduce a new descriptive statistic, the “Interdisciplinary Influence Index,” to map which disciplines “drive” a particular service theme within the literature broadly defined. Finally, we provide the “Interactive Service Scholarship Incubator” app that enables scholars to explore the underlying concept network, predicted links, and themes, in light of their own interests and skill sets. Together, these SRPs offer a scalable roadmap for high-impact future service scholarship and practice.

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