- Forrester analysts warn that around four in five leaders and ITDMs plan to have larger budgets in 2027
- Consumption-based AI pricing makes it harder to predict outlay
- Investment aimed at improving data quality is key
Forrester predicts that software budgets could increase: More than four in five leaders expect to increase overall budgets over the next 12 months and 82% of technology decision makers expect larger budgets.
While some of the extra money could come as a result of greater confidence and willingness to spend on technology, company analysts warn that a change in pricing structures could also be forcing companies to shell out more.
This occurs as software vendors move from traditional per-seat licensing to token or credit pricing, which introduces many more variables, including model selection, context size, production duration, and agent uptime, resulting in much more unpredictable expenses.
The real reason companies are preparing to spend more on software
“Business leaders are no longer planning a return to stability, but rather a future in which volatility will be a constant,” said research director Sharyn Leaver.
Recent changes from major AI vendors point to this emerging pricing model becoming the norm: GitHub moved its Copilot plants to usage-based billing in June and OpenAI added pay-as-you-go Codex seats in April. Anthropic also recently removed Fable 5 from its standard subscriptions and seat-based models due to difficult-to-predict demand, but set plans to reintroduce it when capacity allows.
Recognizing these important changes, Forrester’s report reveals two areas where companies can increase their budgets by 2027: creating machine-readable context and business insight, and increasing brand visibility in response engines.
The report also hints at the important role AI can play in marketing and customer-facing experiences, and the potential use that testable synthetic data can provide. Ultimately, it is more about focusing on investments than investing money in solving the problem, as Leaver concludes:
“The organizations that do best in 2027 won’t be the ones that spend the most on AI. They will be the ones that invest in the foundations that make AI effective.”
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