AI spend will jump 49.5% in 2026, says Gartner

Worldwide AI spending will increase 49.5% in 2026, to $2.7 trillion, and grow another 36.2% in 2027 as AI usage continues to expand, Gartner predicts in the latest quarterly update to its IT spending forecast. But there’s been no diversion of money from other areas of IT to feed AI, said Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst John-David Lovelock. CIOs got some net new money for AI back in 2024, and a little in 2025, he said, “so there wasn’t a diversion, and now more of their spending is about rebranding than diversion.” By 2030, “every dollar is going to be an AI dollar in one way or another,” he said. Instead of buying just a laptop, companies now buy a laptop with AI chips in it, while enterprise software now has AI embedded in it. And instead of doing a project about business strategy, they now do a project about how AI might change business strategy. “In one way, it’s kind of rebranding,” he said. “Net new spending is going more towards AI, and existing spending is being transformed towards AI.” It’s similar with hyperscalers: “The hyperscalers haven’t diverted one dime away from their cloud. So AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta are all continuing to build out their cloud infrastructure…

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