Good morning. Enterprise and global AI spending is widely expected to climb in 2026, driven by expanding AI infrastructure and the broader adoption of AI software and devices. Rather than being concentrated only among top tech giants, investment is increasingly coming from a wider base of enterprises.
Gartner forecasts global AI spending to exceed $2 trillion in 2026, led by the integration of AI into products such as smartphones, PCs, and other underlying infrastructure. Regional economic conditions, regulatory environments, and access to skilled talent will influence how quickly individual companies scale their initiatives. Not every company will commit to large hardware upgrades or wide deployment at the same pace.
To understand how the market is shaping up, I asked Dan Ives, a managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, for his view. “We believe 2026 will be the year of AI monetization as the infrastructure leads to the use cases for enterprises and consumers,” Ives told me. “This is just the beginning, and we expect a bullish 2026 for tech and the AI Revolution.”
Wedbush analysts wrote in a Monday morning note that they are seeing AI-related business ramp up faster recently, and that this momentum should carry into 2026 as end-user enterprises fast-track deployments. The analysts also reject the idea that the market is showing signs of an AI bubble, emphasizing instead that adoption remains in the very early stages as CIOs and business leaders determine where AI can deliver meaningful value in their organizations.
Deloitte’s recent report similarly anticipates continued and rising AI spending in sectors such as tech, media, and telecom, but emphasizes that the focus will shift from experimentation to execution. “New foundational models, or even shiny new enterprise agentic applications, continue to impress—but translating those beyond pilots and trials requires work that’s typically considered less exciting, like data hygiene, integration into existing workflows, governance, new pricing models, and regulatory compliance,” according to the report.
These forecasts point to a common inflection point: 2026 will be less about dazzling new AI models and more about turning existing capabilities into measurable business results.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
