Enterprise technology spending plans for the second half of 2026 are slowing across key sectors as organizations dial back commitments to traditional software and services, according to preliminary survey data released by Enterprise Technology Research (ETR).
The October 2026 Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS), which gathered responses from 1,681 enterprise IT decision-makers through Oct. 2, shows an overall Net Score of 17%. Spending sentiment declined year-over-year in 17 of the 29 sectors tracked by ETR, while seven sectors posted gains and five remained flat.
The steepest pullbacks occurred in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), where the Net Score fell to 18%, down from 23% in October 2025. The decline was driven by a rise in respondents planning to decrease spending (11%, up from 8%) alongside a drop in those planning budget increases (30%, down from 32%). Contact Center technology also saw spending momentum soften, falling 3 percentage points year-over-year to 14%.
Despite budget cuts in legacy automation tools, enterprise interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) remains resilient.
Accounts cutting legacy RPA vendors like UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism showed even higher spending intent for AI vendors than those increasing RPA spend.
Anthropic earned a Net Score of 89% among RPA “cutters” compared to 84% among “growers,” while OpenAI recorded 72% versus 65%. Microsoft Power Automate, however, bucked this trend, maintaining a stronger Net Score among RPA growers (59%) than cutters (42%).
IT services and consulting continue to face severe headwinds, particularly among smaller organizations.
Overall Net Scores for IT Consulting (-3%) and Outsourced IT (-5%) both slipped further into negative territory. While spending sentiment at large organizations remained relatively stable, small businesses posted sharp drops, falling to -21% in consulting and -18% in outsourcing.
At the vendor level, Indian IT services giant Infosys saw the steepest sequential drops among major providers, falling into negative territory across both IT Consulting (-6%) and Outsourced IT (-6%). Conversely, rival Cognizant maintained its prior gains, holding flat quarter-over-quarter at 11% in consulting and 5% in outsourcing.
Cybersecurity continues to command the largest portion of enterprise software budgets, with macro projections pointing to an 8.1% growth rate for security software compared to 4.0% for enterprise software.
However, overall Information Security spending intent dipped slightly to 15%, weighed down by notable vendor slowdowns.
CyberArk’s Net Score dropped to 28%, dipping below its acquirer, Palo Alto Networks Inc. (30%), while Splunk Inc. slipped to 10%. Meanwhile, cloud security vendor Zscaler Inc. saw its Net Score decline 5% sequentially to 30%, pulling it into a tie with Cloudflare Inc., which also landed at 30%.
