Business
Gartner Forecasts Worldwide AI Spending to Grow 47% in 2026
Gartner Forecasts Worldwide AI Spending to Grow 47% in
About this update from Gartner, Inc.
Worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.59 trillion in 2026, a 47% increase year-over-year, according to Gartner, Inc. a business and technology insights company. “Through the next several years, the need for capacity will make AI infrastructure, including AI-optimized IaaS, AI-optimized servers, AI network fabric, AI processing semiconductors and devices, the largest segment of the market, accounting for over 45% of spending, which will be driven by vendors,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “Within this segment, spending on AI-optimized servers will triple over the next five years to become the largest subsegment, as cloud services providers expand capacity in anticipation of the workloads created by GenAI models and agentic workflows.” Enterprises will expand their use of both the GenAI models embedded in existing software applications and the new AI agents within multiple workflows. Model consumption will increase through multistep processes and integration into broad suites of tools as enterprises recognize the potential value of agentic automation. This dynamic means that the short-term outlook for AI models has been increased to 110% growth in 2026, adding $6 billion in spending for this year (see Table 1). Table 1: Worldwide AI Spending by Market, 2025-2027 (Millions of U.S. Dollars) Market 2025 2026 2027 AI Services 436,351 585,527 759,418 AI Cybersecurity 25,920 51,347 85,997 AI Software 282,897 453,209 638,431 AI Models 15,494 32,604 59,161 AI Platforms for Data Science and Machine Learning 21,292 29,928 42,639 AI Application Development Platforms 6,587 8,416 10,922 AI Data 826 3,126 6,480 AI Infrastructure 975,581 1,431,509 1,890,310 Total AI Spending 1,764,947 2,595,667 3,493,358 “Up to this point, AI spending has primarily been driven by technology companies and hyperscalers,” said Lovelock. “Enterprises have yet to really flex their spending potential. That is coming and 2026 will be the inflection year. Currently, organizations show limited appetite for using AI to drive disruptive enterprise change. Instead, they favor tactical AI initiatives with incremental improvements in efficiency and productivity. "For this reason, CIOs face challenges in proving the value from AI investments and demonstrate tangible business outcomes,” said Lovelock. “Aligning AI initiatives with strategic business objectives ...