2026 State of IT: Growth in AI, security, tech spending

To help organizations across the globe understand business technology challenges and opportunities for the upcoming year, Spiceworks published its 14th Annual State of IT reportOpens a new window , providing a forward-looking outlook on 2026 IT spending and technology adoption.

Released in partnership with our colleagues at Aberdeen Strategy & Research, the report helps organizations benchmark 2026 budget plans across spending categories, highlights common AI business use cases, and dives deep into which cybersecurity solutions IT departments plan to implement.

How Spiceworks surfaces IT spending insights

Thanks to the millions of IT professionals who use the Spiceworks Community and apps, including our Cloud Helpdesk tool and our proven analytical capabilities, Spiceworks and Aberdeen Research can capture and share unique tech market insights. To create the 2026 State of IT, we surveyed 835 IT professionals representing companies in North America and Europe about their technology plans over the next 12 months. We then compared and trended the data with surveys from previous years.

Key highlights from the report:

• In 2026, 55% of companies plan to increase IT budgets, and the overall volume of IT spending is projected to grow at a rate of approximately 11%
• The top reasons driving budget increases are the need to upgrade outdated infrastructure, increased priority on IT projects, and increased security concerns
• Business AI adoption has doubled over the past two years, with 52% current use. However, current use cases are pragmatic and focused on low-hanging fruit, and more foundational work needs to be done to unlock advanced use cases.

Additional insights you’ll find in the 2026 State of IT:

• Interactive charts on planned 2026 IT spending by company size and region
• Areas where businesses plan to cut expenses in 2026
• Breakdowns of spending across hardware, software, and cloud
• Interactive charts showing emerging tech adoption by business size
• Current gaps in AI strategies in businesses
• Read more in the full 2026 State of IT ReportOpens a new window

Hear from the team behind the insights

We recently offered an exclusive preview of the findings from the 2026 State of IT in a keynote presentation at the SpiceWorld conference in Austin, Texas.

Now, you can watch a recording of that keynote and chat directly with three of the analysts involved in the research. They will watch along with you, share additional data points, and offer context that wasn’t shared at the event.

Join us on December 17, 2025, @ 1PM EST for the 2026 State of IT livestream event. You won’t want to miss it!

Register for the 2026 State of IT keynote watch party Opens a new window