94% of IT Teams to Increase AI Infrastructure Spend; AWS Retains Lead
AMZN•In Piper Sandler’s H1 2026 CIO Pulse Survey, 94% of IT decision-makers plan to boost AI infrastructure spending, with Azure and AWS maintaining top placements among cloud providers. IT budgets are projected to grow 4.8% next year, while 86% of respondents are deploying advanced AI systems.
1. Enterprise AI Deployment Accelerates
The H1 2026 CIO Pulse Survey found that 86% of IT decision-makers are deploying AI copilots, agentic AI or fully autonomous systems, signaling a clear shift from planning to active implementation across enterprises.
2. IT Budget Growth and Spending Priorities
IT budgets are forecast to grow 4.8% in 2026, up two percentage points from 2025, with 73% of respondents prioritizing security and 61% allocating funds to application software, while on-premise infrastructure and IoT connectivity saw the largest negative revisions.
3. Cloud Infrastructure Investments Surge
A striking 94% of respondents plan to increase spending on AI infrastructure, and Azure and AWS continue to lead ahead of Google Cloud and OCI despite data quality concerns overtaking security as the main barrier to GenAI adoption.
4. Workforce Impact Expectations
The survey reveals 63% of IT leaders expect AI adoption to weigh on headcount, up from 45% in the previous survey, indicating a growing anticipation of workforce reductions driven by automation.
