For a lot of the previous yr, Wall Road and Silicon Valley have wrestled with the identical uncomfortable query: Will corporations actually spend cash on AI, or is the hype simply outpacing budgets?
A brand new CIO survey from RBC Capital means that query might lastly have a solution, and it is a resounding sure.
RBC lately polled 117 IT professionals at corporations with annual income starting from under $250 million to greater than $25 billion. 90% of the respondents stated their organizations plan to spend extra on AI in 2026.
“General, we got here away more and more optimistic of macro/price range stabilization taking form in 2026 and inspired by the tempo of early GenAI adoption,” the RBC analysts wrote in a analysis notice summarizing the findings.
CIOs usually are not solely transferring quickly into manufacturing with AI methods, however they’re additionally setting apart devoted budgets to fund that adoption.
A hanging 90% of expertise leaders stated their organizations are creating new budgets particularly for generative AI and LLM initiatives, up from 85% the yr earlier than. That implies AI is changing into additive fairly than substitutive in enterprise tech spending.
Much more telling: 60% of respondents stated they’re already in manufacturing with AI initiatives, a soar from 39% the earlier yr. One other 32% count on to be in manufacturing inside six months.
This shift comes after months of skepticism from traders who questioned whether or not companies would convert pilot initiatives into actual spending. The survey information means that second is now arriving.
CIOs overwhelmingly cited AI as the highest class for elevated software program spending subsequent yr, surpassing cybersecurity and IT service administration. And in open-ended responses, executives repeatedly named AI as their greatest space of funding for 2026, typically paired with infrastructure upgrades and automation initiatives, in accordance with the RBC survey.
Use instances are increasing past experimentation. Seventy-six p.c of CIOs stated their AI methods now goal each price financial savings and income era, a shift that reinforces AI’s transition from a novelty to a aggressive mandate.
Issues stay — information privateness tops the checklist — however these worries are now not slowing adoption. As a substitute, AI is changing into the first pressure increasing IT budgets heading into 2026.
Join BI’s Tech Memo publication right here. Attain out to me through e-mail at abarr@businessinsider.com.
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