The 2026 AIQ Benchmark: Seven Findings From 539 Enterprise AI Decision-Makers

Enterprise AI buyers are ready to spend. In the 2026 AIQ Benchmark, a survey of 539 senior enterprise data and AI decision-makers, 81% said they help choose the AI vendors their organizations buy from, 58% have a significant or major AI budget, and 75% are buying AI and data solutions this year. Almost half are buying right now.

Here are seven findings.

1. Who makes the AI buying decisions?

81% of respondents are involved in selecting AI vendors for their organizations, and they are constantly in the market: 60% evaluate new AI tools, vendors or partners several times a year or continuously, and 36% always have evaluations in flight.

2. How much are they spending?

Nearly all of them have money set aside: 96% have AI in this year's budget. 58% say AI has a significant budget supporting key initiatives or represents a major portion of annual spend, and for 12%, AI is a major share of their total spend.

3. When are they buying?

Most of them are buying within the year. 75% plan to buy AI and data solutions in the next 12 months, and 45% are actively evaluating solutions today. Budget and timing go together: 55% of organizations where AI is a major share of spend are evaluating right now.

4. Is AI a strategic priority?

For nearly everyone it is: 88% call AI core or strategic to the business. 49% say it is core to long-term innovation and operations, and another 40% call it a strategic focus with defined initiatives.

5. What are they buying for?

Agentic systems lead the list, with 26% naming agentic systems as their highest-priority use case ahead of process automation (19%) and GenAI applications such as copilots and summarization (17%). These are not experiments: 75% already have LLM applications in production, 37% run multiple LLMs that power business functions and 11% run autonomous agents.

6. Where is the next wave of investment?

The next wave is in data and governance. Only 17% describe their data infrastructure as AI-ready, and those organizations are far ahead: 87% run multiple LLMs or autonomous agents, compared with 23% of organizations whose data is still fragmented. Governance shows the same pattern. 60% of organizations with organization-wide AI policies run multiple LLMs or agents, compared with 7% of those without formal policies. For buyers, that makes data foundations and governance the next priorities. As Elena Garvey, IT Director of Enterprise Data Intelligence at Motorola Solutions, put it: "If you have five different definitions of revenue, you have zero definition."

7. What do buyers need from vendors?

They need a faster path to the right fit. 83% of decision-makers involved in vendor selection say finding the right AI vendors is a moderate or significant challenge, and 59% are open to a resource that matches them with the right AI tools and vendors. matchmAIQer is built to do exactly that.

Explore the full benchmark

The interactive 2026 AIQ Benchmark has every chart, plus what enterprise AI leaders said about these trends. You can also download the PDF summary to share with your team.

Frequently asked questions

What is the AIQ Benchmark?

A 2026 survey of 539 enterprise data and AI decision-makers covering AI priorities, budgets, buying plans and vendor selection.

How many enterprise AI leaders are buying this year?

75% of respondents are buying AI and data solutions within the next 12 months, and 45% are actively evaluating solutions now.

What is the top enterprise AI use case in 2026?

Agentic systems, named by 26% of respondents as their highest-priority use case.

Filed under: AI Strategy & ROI, Agentic AI, AI Governance & Trust