Modern business is built on digital services and infrastructure. As business grows and evolves, so, too, must IT organizations, along with applications and infrastructure. 2026 is a year of struggling through transition. While nearly every business ramps up investment to pursue AI-led transformation, the maintenance of securing and enabling existing systems and services creates ever-increasing levels of complexity.

In response, IT organizations worldwide expect to increase spending nearly everywhere (i.e., for on-premises infrastructure, the cloud, tools, operations, and applications). The exuberance around AI is starting to diminish and be replaced by a reality that features opportunity, value, and a high price tag. Moving forward, businesses plan to stay committed to AI along with other key strategic needs like cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and application modernization, but many are increasing their scrutiny on costs in an effort to stem the rapid growth in IT spending.