Piper Sandler's first-half 2026 CIO Pulse Survey finds enterprise AI moving decisively out of experimentation and into operational use. According to the survey, 86% of IT decision-makers are now deploying copilots, agentic AI, or fully autonomous systems, signaling broad implementation across organizations.
Analyst James Fish described the survey's tone as constructive and highlighted budget expectations. IT budgets are projected to grow 4.8% in 2026, which Fish notes is a two-percentage-point improvement from 2025 and roughly in line with the 5.2% growth recorded in Piper Sandler's December survey. Fish also observed that "initial IT budgets historically start out more optimistic," and viewed the relative stability of the figure versus six months ago as a constructive sign.
When asked about spending priorities, respondents placed security at the top, with 73% ranking it as a priority. Application Software followed at 61%. By contrast, on-premise infrastructure, IoT connectivity, and communications ranked lowest among areas of planned spend and each showed the most negative revisions compared with the prior survey.
On the generative AI front, the survey reports a shift in perceived barriers. Concerns over data quality and accuracy have risen to become the principal obstacle to GenAI adoption, surpassing prior top concerns around security and governance. The survey also found that 63% of respondents expect AI to weigh on headcount, an increase from 45% in the earlier survey.
Cloud infrastructure intentions remain robust. Piper Sandler reports 94% of respondents plan to increase spending on AI infrastructure in the cloud. Within cloud providers, Azure and AWS retained leadership positions, ahead of Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure according to survey responses.
Fish pointed to several notable stock callouts aligned with survey trends, naming Amazon, Arista Networks, Datadog, Dell, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, and Rubrik among companies of interest. The survey's combination of continued security focus, sustained cloud investment, and accelerating AI deployments frames the technology spending backdrop for vendors and IT buyers alike.
The findings reflect several converging themes: growing operational use of AI systems, a modestly stronger budget outlook for IT in 2026, heightened concern about the quality and accuracy of AI inputs, and expectations that AI will have meaningful workforce implications. Respondents' prioritization of security and application software, alongside elevated cloud infrastructure plans, suggests market demand that spans cybersecurity, software vendors, and cloud service providers.
Methodological note: The article summarizes key takeaways as reported from Piper Sandler's H1 2026 CIO Pulse Survey and comments attributed to analyst James Fish.