Tech spending worldwide continues to accelerate at a pace not seen since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s the word from Michael O’Grady, forecast analyst at Forrester Research, who expects global technology investment to increase a record 7.8% in 2026, reaching $5.6 trillion.
According to O’Grady, generative AI is driving the surge. As a result, Forrester expects that nearly two-thirds of global tech spending over the next five years will flow into software and computer equipment, particularly servers.
Those findings align closely with recent projections from Gartner. The analyst firm forecast global IT spending to top $6.15 trillion this year amid rising demand for AI infrastructure. Gartner also expects server spending to jump nearly 37% as AI workloads proliferate across enterprises.
The two research houses agree on another key point: hyperscalers will dominate much of that investment. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others are expected to account for a disproportionate share of AI-related infrastructure outlay.
Enterprises will continue to rely on those cloud computing providers’ scale to deploy and operate increasingly complex workloads. As a result, O’Grady said hyperscalers will account for nearly half of AI infrastructure capital expenditures between 2025 and 2028.
Yet for IT services partners, that means much of the incremental spending fueling new projections no longer flows into traditional offerings first.
Now, providers are being forced to rethink where to focus their strategies in an AI-dominated market. In the meantime, investors are reacting to newly launched AI capabilities, triggering swings in tech firm valuations. Wall Street fears that AI tools could erode revenue from labor-based IT services. O’Grady acknowledged that the sector will not be immune to disruption.
“Enterprises are focusing on AI-driven tech talent,” he wrote in in the Feb. 2 report. “Most tech jobs will experience a moderate to high degree of transformation because of AI.”
That metamorphosis is underway. O’Grady said AI has become a top technology priority as organizations expand AI-enabled software development, deploy generative AI tools across business applications and adopt real-time, AI-driven operational support models. To that point, by last June, AI-related job postings accounted for 20% of available tech roles in the U.S., according to Forrester.
Enterprises are at last starting to see measurable productivity gains from AI.
O’Grady said software developers report improvements from using generative AI across both greenfield and brownfield projects, with as much as 30% of Microsoft’s code now written by AI tools. In financial services, JPMorgan Chase has reported flat fraud-detection costs despite a 12% annual increase in threat activity, O’Grady noted. At the same time, JPMorgan Chase achieved a 10-20% boost in software engineer productivity through in-house AI coding assistants, he added.
Channel strategies
For IT service providers, those examples underscore where value is shifting: away from pure headcount-driven delivery models and toward expertise that helps enterprises operationalize AI responsibly and at scale. While infrastructure dollars concentrate upstream, services opportunities increasingly sit downstream: in software-led consulting, operational support and reliability-focused engagements.
Recent commentary from Tata Consultancy Services reflects that change.
“With AI becoming integral to enterprise transformation — and given the probabilistic nature of technology — reliability is more critical than ever for delivering real, measurable value in a responsible way,” said Amit Bajaj, president of North America at Tata Consultancy Services, in a recent press release.
The emphasis on outcomes reflects a broader recalibration across the channel. AI is reshaping how work is done, and as a result, partners are being pushed to articulate their value beyond execution alone.
In many ways, the dynamic echoes past technology transitions. When disruption accelerates, the channel’s core proposition often shifts back to guidance and expertise. In the context of AI, this may mean helping enterprises shift focus from experimentation to value realization.
Sumit Virmani, global chief marketing officer at Infosys, described the opportunity as “amplifying human potential through transformative enterprise AI solutions,” combined with a focus on AI value discovery and realization at scale.
Overall, while not every dollar of that $5.6 trillion will be up for grabs by IT services partners, the opportunity will increasingly concentrate among those who understand where AI-driven spending creates demand for specialized knowledge, not just infrastructure.
