According to a new survey of 2,360 senior executives worldwide, companies expect to spend approximately 1.7% of their revenue on artificial intelligence investments this year — more than double the 0.8% average for 2025.
Every industry tracked in the study plans to increase its AI spending, led by technology companies, which expect to allocate 2.1% of their revenue to it.
The survey also finds that those companies are willing to be patient. Only 6% of the executives said they would pull back on AI investments if current initiatives don’t pay off in 2026.
Significant concerns about the use of AI remain, however. More than half (53%) of respondents cited data privacy and cybersecurity as a top risk, although that was down 12 percentage points from a similar survey a year ago. See more takeaways.