IT Hardware: May 2026 CIO survey results – Perspectives on spending levels, Al, PCs, and vendors

Research evidence excerpt

IT Hardware: May 2026 CIO survey results – Perspectives on spending levels, Al, PCs, and vendors

15 July 2026

U.S. IT Hardware

IT Hardware: May 2026 CIO survey results — Perspectives on

spending levels, AI, PCs, and vendors

Today’s note summarizes the results of our May/June survey of 100 US and European Chief Mark C. Newman

+1 212 845 7822 Information Officers (CIOs) among Global 1000 companies.

mark.newman@bernsteinsg.com

CIO expectations for IT spending remain constructive and broadly unchanged

April Li since our Nov 25 survey, although sentiment has diverged regionally, with European

+1 917 344 8339 CIOs becoming more pessimistic than American counterparts. We forecast IT spending april.li@bernsteinsg.com

growth in 2026 to be in line with Gartner’s estimated 12%. Historically, IT spending

Phoebe Sun has shown a positive correlation with both GDP and corporate earnings growth (which has

+1 917 344 8481 improved significantly to 24.4% vs. 15.3% last Nov).

phoebe.sun@bernsteinsg.com

CIOs prioritize spending on cybersecurity software, with GenAI and storage ranking

as the 2nd and 3rd-highest spending priorities, respectively. Spending intentions

remain weakest for traditional infrastructure categories, including x86 servers, mainframes,

and printers. Despite growing enterprise focus on generative AI, CIOs remain relatively

cautious on “on-prem” AI server spending. Mainframe sentiment remains negative

overall and broadly stable versus our Nov 25 survey, with 14% of mainframe users

intending to add capacity.

While enterprises appear to remain largely in the exploration phase for AI and

LLMs, the May 26 survey shows encouraging signs of adoption. 75% of CIOs believe

that AI will be highly productivity-enhancing and 41% report actively exploring potential

applications.