U.S. Software: AI & IT Budgets Through The Procurement Lens

Research evidence excerpt

U.S. Software: AI & IT Budgets Through The Procurement Lens

Global Research

13 July 2026ab

U.S. Software Equities

AmericasAI & IT Budgets Through The Procurement Lens

Software

Taylor McGinnis

ProcureCon IT Sourcing Summary Analyst

We attended the ProcureCon IT Sourcing conference in Austin, TX, where >100 taylor.mcginnis@ubs.com

procurement leaders gathered to discuss AI adoption, spending trends, negotiation +1-212-713 1332

tactics, rationalization opportunities and more. The event reinforced our existing view: Karl Keirstead

AI and cybersecurity remain the most important and resilient areas of IT spend, with AI Analyst

investment also benefiting portions of the data and infra stack. By contrast, apps still karl.keirstead@ubs.com

face pressure from license rationalization, vendor consolidation, and price increase +1-310-734 2455

scrutiny. Combined with a constrained hiring environment, we believe the demand Madeline Tribendis

backdrop remains tough for many apps vendors, particularly mature seat-based ones. Associate Analyst

madeline.tribendis@ubs.com

Our Key Takes +1-212-713 8151

AI Adoption/Token Consumption: We still expect some pressure on token

spend amid optimization efforts, but caution against overstating the impact as

many orgs are still early in enabling AI and those optimizing are modestly curbing

growth, not cutting. Token optimization is viewed as a key challenge, with most

orgs lacking visibility into company-wide AI consumption, and many are early in

establishing controls to effectively monitor it. While advanced adopters are

implementing guardrails, the focus remains on improving efficiency rather than

slowing adoption. The primary areas of optimization include model misuse—using