Morgan Stanley CIO Survey: Enterprise Software budget to accelerate by 2026, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) leads in Generative AI spending with a 34% share.

Morgan Stanley's Chief Information Officer (CIO) survey shows that enterprise software budgets for 2026 are expected to increase by 3.8% year-over-year, slightly faster than the 3.7% increase from the previous year. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) continues to maintain the leading market share. The firm has given Microsoft Corporation a "hold" rating and designated it as a "preferred stock," with a target price of $650. Keith Weiss, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, stated in a research report released on Wednesday: "With the ongoing improvement in the software spending environment, we believe that Microsoft Corporation is most likely to benefit as a technology platform. According to CIO survey data, the market expects Microsoft Corporation's weighted average spending growth rate for 2026 to be 7.3%, reflecting the strong confidence of enterprise customers in its long-term investments." Further survey data shows that 92% of surveyed CIOs plan to use Microsoft Corporation's generative AI products in the next 12 months, a proportion that was as high as 95% in 2024. Weiss emphasized in the report: "Based on the latest CIO survey data, Microsoft Corporation's Azure remains the preferred public cloud provider, and is expected to maintain its leading position in the next three years. Currently, 53% of enterprise application workloads are deployed on the Azure platform, and the survey indicates that this core deployment proportion will remain stable in the next three years. It is noteworthy that during this period, the overall public cloud market adoption rate is still accelerating, forming a dual growth momentum of 'stable share of dominant vendors + increasing industry penetration'." The synergistic effect between Microsoft Corporation and OpenAI continues to show, with 37% of CIOs expecting to use Azure OpenAI services in the future, a significant decrease compared to the survey data of 57% in the second quarter of 2025. The survey results also reveal that the enterprise generative AI expenditure landscape in the next three years will show a concentration of top players: Microsoft Corporation is expected to take the largest share with 34%; Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) will hold the second position with 15%; OpenAI and Salesforce, Inc. (CRM.US) will form the second tier with 9% each; Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US) will closely follow with 6% share.