For much of the past year, amid growing concerns about an AI bubble, Wall Street and Silicon Valley have faced the same unsettling question: will businesses really succeed in artificial intelligence? Does it cost money?
Royal Bank of Canada A recent survey of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) released by RBC Capital Markets provides a clear answer: Yes.
RBC recently surveyed 117 IT professionals from companies with annual revenues ranging from less than $250 million to over $25 billion.
90% of respondents said their companies plan to invest more in artificial intelligence by 2026.
"Overall, we are increasingly optimistic about the prospect of a more stable macroeconomic environment and budgets in 2026, and are encouraged by the pace of early adoption of generative AI ," RBC analysts wrote in a research report summarizing their findings.
CIOs not only quickly deployed AI systems to production, but also allocated special budgets to support this transformation.
One statistic is particularly noteworthy: a staggering 90% of technology executives said their companies are allocating new dedicated budgets for generative AI and large language model (LLM) projects, up from 85% last year . This indicates that AI spending is increasingly becoming an incremental investment rather than a replacement for existing investments in corporate technology spending.
Even more compelling data shows that 60% of respondents said they have already used AI projects in their actual business, far higher than the 39% in the previous year ; another 32% of respondents expect to put AI projects into practical use within the next six months.
For months, investors had been skeptical about companies' ability to translate AI pilot projects into actual spending. The survey above suggests that that moment is approaching.
The survey also showed that CIOs generally listed AI as the top category for software spending growth next year, surpassing cybersecurity. And IT service management. In open-ended questions, executives repeatedly listed AI as the biggest investment area in 2026.
Furthermore, the application scenarios for AI are rapidly expanding beyond the experimental stage. 76% of CIOs stated that their AI strategies now aim to save costs and generate revenue, a shift that confirms AI's evolution from a novel technology into a core competitive capability for businesses.
(Article source: CLS)
