Understanding the IT market
Understanding customer priorities
AI remains a central theme
The primary drivers of technology spending include
- Competitive cost base: driving a leaner, more competitive cost base
- Initiatives focused on AI-driven value creation, particularly in data management, security, and analytics
- Continued cloud transformation, with emphasis on data sovereignty
- Investments aimed at reducing accumulated technology debt
- ERP and enterprise application renewals, driven by ageing platforms and vendor roadmaps.
AI remains the central theme underpinning technology investment growth. The nature of AI spend is evolving from proof-of-concepts towards use cases that deliver measurable business value. At the same time, optionality across enabling technologies is increasing, reducing the likelihood of a winner-takes-all market structure. As AI adoption matures, customers are increasingly recognizing that the primary constraints are not the core models/ technologies themselves, but rather data availability and quality, system integrations, data management practices, and security.
Cloud transformation continues to rank high on customer agendas across industries, with growing emphasis on security, resilience, and data sovereignty. In parallel, software providers are embedding AI capabilities to improve productivity, usability, and insight generation, driving successive waves of application upgrades. Demand for modular software architectures, open standards, and data-led value creation continues to increase. These trends are evident even in highly regulated sectors such as banking and healthcare, where compliance requirements and long transformation cycles have traditionally slowed adoption.
Software businesses and the services built around them are expected to remain resilient, with growth improving towards low single-digit levels. Technology consulting spend is expected to recover from the negative growth observed in 2025 to slightly positive growth in 2026.