2026 was the year AI sourcing agents went from demo-stage novelty to everyday tool. Twelve months ago, most recruiters were still manually crafting boolean strings and living inside LinkedIn Recruiter. Today, autonomous agents are scanning the open web, personalising outreach at scale, and holding multi-step conversations with candidates before a human ever gets involved. But what actually worked? Which promises materialised, which fell flat, and where did the humans fight back and win? As we close out the year, it’s time to take stock. In this special year-in-review edition of Brainfood Live, we’ll look back at the biggest developments in sourcing and AI sourcing agents over 2026 – the tools, the trends, the triumphs and the telling failures.