A program of EffectiveSC
How We Use AISources checked October 24, 2026
$2.67T Gartner forecasts worldwide AI spending of $2.67 trillion in 2026, up from $1.79 trillion in 2025.
Gartner expects spending to reach $3.64 trillion in 2027.
56% More than half of the AI spending Gartner forecasts for 2026, $1.48 trillion, is for AI infrastructure.
Gartner puts AI services at $576 billion and AI software at $462 billion in 2026.
Worldwide AI spending forecast for 2026, by category, US dollars
Gartner's figures are a forecast, not a count. Its press release gives the totals by market but doesn't describe how they are built; the method is in Gartner's paid report.
An estimate. Treat the totals as one firm’s forecast. Gartner updates it each quarter; these figures are from its second-quarter 2026 forecast, which its clients can read as Forecast: AI Spending, Worldwide, 2025-2030, 2Q26.
TODO for Robb: confirm whether we can describe Gartner's forecast method from a public source, or keep this as stated.
| Market | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI infrastructure | 981,920 | 1,484,397 | 1,977,685 |
| AI services | 434,046 | 576,481 | 745,655 |
| AI software | 288,168 | 461,637 | 656,353 |
| AI cybersecurity | 25,920 | 51,347 | 85,997 |
| AI agents and assistants | 16,481 | 29,219 | 65,472 |
| Generative AI models | 13,021 | 28,266 | 51,620 |
| AI platforms for data science and machine learning | 19,405 | 26,445 | 35,552 |
| AI application development platforms | 6,885 | 9,541 | 12,478 |
| AI data | 826 | 3,126 | 6,480 |
| Total AI spending | 1,786,671 | 2,670,460 | 3,637,292 |
Source: Gartner, Gartner Forecasts Worldwide AI Spending to Grow 49.5% in 2026, September 16, 2026, Table 1.
Spend and tokens
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Spend and tokens
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55.9% of businesses on Ramp paid for AI in September 2026; 24.6% of US businesses told the Census Bureau they had used it in the past two weeks.
Spend and tokens
Who sells AI at work, and for how much?
List prices and the commercial results each seller has published.
The AI at Work Benchmark
Score your organization's practices, measure your people with an anonymous pulse, and see both against the published evidence.