Global Corporate Survey 2026: AI Budgets, Priorities And Tech Preferences
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Executive Summary
This report helps heads of AI and C-Level executives benchmark their firms’ budgets, investment priorities and technology preferences against those of their global peer group. The data collected through the Verdantix survey also support strategic decision-making and business planning for executives at AI, enterprise consulting and technology providers. The 2026 Verdantix AI global corporate survey spans 38 countries and 29 industries. Survey respondents comprised 306 senior executives within dedicated IT and AI functions, approximately 30% of whom were C-Level leaders. Insights reveal a resurgence in AI budget growth for 2027, following a more cautious approach in the previous year, signalling that firms are preparing to scale deployments across proven, high-value AI use cases. In addition, this year has seen a sharp increase in planned custom AI deployments, with organizations prioritizing security and integration capabilities and, when scrutinizing vendor commercial models, favouring predictable, value-aligned pricing.
Figure 1. Survey respondents: revenue breakdown
Figure 2. Survey respondents: geographical breakdown
Figure 3. Survey respondents: industry breakdown
Figure 4. AI budgets for 2027
Figure 5. AI funding allocation sources
Figure 6. Key AI stakeholder influence
Figure 7. Enterprise AI initiatives prioritization
Figure 8. Enterprise software ecosystem trends
Figure 9. Enterprise software ecosystem incumbent vs displacement trends
Figure 10. Prioritization of vendor AI co-development services
Figure 11. Impact of coding agents on buy vs build decisions
Figure 12. Impact of AI on enterprise software consolidation
Figure 13. Impact of AI on the execution of core enterprise workflows and tasks
Figure 14. Corporate adoption of AI or AI-enabling technologies
Figure 15. Barriers to enterprise adoption of agentic AI
Figure 16. Level of agentic workflow automation by business function
Figure 17. Prioritization of AI agent attributes
Figure 18. Significance of enterprise AI governance concerns
Figure 19. Enterprise readiness for AI regulatory scrutiny
Figure 20. Corporate pricing preferences for AI software
About the Authors
Aleksander Milligan
Analyst
Aleks is an Analyst at Verdantix, specializing in enterprise AI adoption. He advises technology vendors and corporate buyers on GenAI integration and LLM market trends, the AI...
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Chris Sayers
Senior Manager
Chris is a Senior Manager at Verdantix. His current research agenda targets enterprise AI integration and adoption, AI market trends and agentic AI. Chris joined Verdantix in ...
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