Every year, budgets tell a story. They reveal not only what leaders hope for but also what they fear. In 2024 the story was caution. Leaders kept their spending flat, waiting for clarity in a world that felt unpredictable. By 2025 the tone had shifted. Optimism crept back in, with bigger bets and more willingness to invest in growth. Now we stand at the start of 2026 and the story continues to evolve. The mood is more confident but also more deliberate. Leaders want to spend, yet they want to spend wisely.

Technology Steps Into the Spotlight

Technology leaders are at the front of this shift. More than nine in ten expect their budgets to grow and many anticipate increases far beyond inflation. That confidence may sound bold but it comes with hard lessons learned. Recent global cyber disruptions made it painfully clear that the digital foundations of many organizations were not as strong as leaders believed. Security, resiliency, and monitoring have moved from back-office priorities to front-page imperatives. This year it is less about chasing the hype of artificial intelligence and more about grounding it in reality. Leaders recognize that AI will fail without trusted data, robust governance, and resilient infrastructure. The focus is pragmatic, not flashy, and that may be the healthiest sign of progress.

Marketing Tells Two Stories

Marketing leaders tell a more complex story. Consumer marketers are investing heavily, determined to connect data, personalize experiences, and keep pace with customer expectations that continue to rise. In consumer markets there is no middle ground. You either advance or you fall behind. Business-to-business marketers, by contrast, are far more restrained. Years of adding tools and processes have created sprawl and inefficiency. These leaders are still increasing budgets, but with far more precision. They are cutting away waste and thinking harder about where growth will truly come from. What unites both groups, though, is a renewed focus on the basics: quality data and trusted content. Without these, no amount of technology will win customers’ trust.

People Versus Technology

Across every function a larger pattern has emerged. Technology budgets are growing faster than investments in people. Leaders are betting that automation, platforms, and connected systems can deliver impact without expanding headcount. Yet here lies a paradox. Technology without people rarely fulfills its promise. The real opportunity in 2026 is not replacing people but amplifying them. Retraining, reskilling, and empowering staff with better tools will define the organizations that move ahead. Buying more software is not the same as building stronger capabilities, and leaders are beginning to realize it.

The Smart Places to Invest

So where should the new investment flow? The answer begins and ends with data. High-quality data, accessible data, data that is secure and well governed. It is the oxygen for AI, the foundation for customer experiences, and the glue that allows employees to collaborate and innovate. Infrastructure also matters, but with nuance. Cloud is important, yet the mantra is shifting from cloud first to cloud when it makes sense. The right workload should run in the right place, whether that is in the cloud, at the edge, or in a private data center. Knowledge management is another rising priority. An organization cannot thrive if its own knowledge is scattered or locked away.

The Places to Cut

At the same time, leaders must learn where to cut back. Cloud sprawl and tech sprawl are draining budgets. The explosion of SaaS and decentralized decisions has left many firms with redundant tools and uncontrolled costs. Getting disciplined about these choices is no longer optional. Nor is it necessary to maintain every digital touchpoint. Not every brand needs an app. Not every survey delivers value. Better to do fewer things well than spread resources thin across experiences that add little.

Experiment with Intention

Experimentation remains essential but it must be intentional. Leaders are exploring multimodal artificial intelligence that blends text, images, video, and code into richer applications. They are beginning to use synthetic data to train systems without exposing sensitive information. Some are preparing for the future of quantum security, recognizing that data stolen today could be cracked tomorrow. Others are testing social commerce, brand-specific AI assistants, and new ways of gathering zero-party data directly from customers. These are not areas for reckless spending, but they are areas where learning early will pay off later.

A Year of Disciplined Ambition

Taken together, the picture of 2026 is one of disciplined ambition. Leaders are investing again, but not indiscriminately. They are cutting excess, focusing on fundamentals, and treating experimentation as a strategic exercise rather than a side project. It is optimism balanced with restraint.

If 2025 is the year of rediscovering confidence, 2026 will be the year of building resilience. It is about ensuring that investments in technology rest on strong data foundations, that employees are empowered rather than sidelined, and that growth is pursued with clarity rather than clutter. The future is no longer a distant horizon. It is here, pressing against every decision leaders make. And the choices they make this year will determine not just how they spend, but how they thrive.