AI Spending Set to Hit 20% of Tech Budgets Despite ROI Struggles
AI-generated image · US National Wire
Forrester reports that while open-weight models offer a cheaper alternative for routine tasks, most CIOs are expected to miss their AI return-on-investment targets.
Artificial intelligence is projected to consume 20% of all business technology spending next year, as The Register first reported via Technology & Security Predictions from Forrester. However, the analyst firm warns that this investment is not translating into broad financial success.
Reporting from The Register notes that Forrester's State Of AI Survey 2026 indicates more than half of CIOs will likely miss their AI-related ROI targets next year. Currently, only 22% of AI decision-makers report a positive impact on EBITDA over the last 12 months. Sharyn Leaver, chief research officer at Forrester, stated that this spending trend increases pressure on leaders to manage risk, infrastructure, and costs while proving the technology's value.
To reduce costs, enterprises are turning to open-weight models like Qwen, Llama, and Gemma. Forrester predicts these models will account for 50% of AI tokens but only 5% of enterprise spend, as they are deemed "good enough" for high-volume, routine workloads such as internal knowledge search, customer support, document processing, and agentic workflow substeps.
High-end frontier models—specifically Google's Gemini 4 Argon, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol, and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5.5—will be reserved for critical automations and deep knowledge tasks where errors are costly. Despite these distinctions, Forrester suggests that measurable, firmwide results are being delayed because organizations are failing to update their processes and structures to match their technology adoption.