Microsoft Is a Winner for AI Spending in 2026. Why Salesforce Could Be a Loser.

Microsoft is viewed as the most strategic seller of artificial-intelligence tools, according to KeyBanc. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)

Key Points

• IT budgets are projected to increase by 3.7% in 2026, with artificial-intelligence spending rising to 4.7% from 3.2% this year.
• Microsoft is a major beneficiary, with 91% of respondents expecting increased spending on its cloud services and AI tools such as Copilot.
• Salesforce faces challenges, as only 36% of individuals would pay for AI capabilities from their CRM provider, a decrease from 46%.

Company executives are shaping their information-technology budgets for next year. Microsoft looks set to be a major beneficiary from artificial-intelligence spending, but the news isn’t so good for Salesforce, according to a KeyBanc survey.

IT budgets are set to grow 3.7% in 2026, according to the survey of chief information officers. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but money is being shifted into AI, which is set to rise to 4.7% of overall budgets from 3.2% this year.

That’s good news for Microsoft , with 91% of KeyBanc’s respondents expecting to spend more with the company on its cloud-computing services. Microsoft was also the vendor with the highest expected net increase in spending.

“Microsoft is still viewed as [the] most strategic AI vendor,” wrote KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader and colleagues in a research note. Ader has an Overweight rating and $630 target price on Microsoft, which was up 0.1% at $491.32 in Tuesday trading.

However, the signs aren’t so good for Salesforce and its hopes that AI will boost sales of its customer-relationship-management (CRM) software.

“Only 36% of individuals cited interest in paying for AI capabilities from their CRM software provider, down materially from 46% in our last survey. Individuals who would pay cited interest primarily in paying for sales prospecting, content marketing, and customer service bots,” Ader and colleagues wrote.

Only 7% of respondents said they were using Salesforce’s Agentforce AI tools, in contrast to 76% for Microsoft’s Copilot AI platform. The good news for Salesforce is that it was named top CRM vendor by 45% of respondents in the survey for the second half of 2025, up from 35% for the first half.

Ader has an Overweight rating and $400 target price on Salesforce stock, which was up 0.6% at $261.11 on Tuesday.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com