Bcg says ai spending tripled in two years to 3.3% of revenue, and 80% of it now sits outside the it…
bcg says ai spending tripled in two years to 3.3% of revenue, and 80% of it now sits outside the it department. when the money stops routing through the cio, the ai strategy stops being a technology decision.
the budget chart is the org chart.
Context
Verified date: BCG's press release of Sep 30, 2026 says corporate AI spending has doubled in a year to 3.3% of revenue and more than 80% of it now sits outside the enterprise IT budget. The same finding appears in BCG's Sep 17 publication on the formula for agentic AI value.
BCG's AI Radar (Jan 12, 2026) said corporations expected to double AI spending in 2026 from 0.8% to about 1.7% of revenues.
The 3.3% of revenue and the 80% outside IT match BCG, published Sep 17 and Sep 30, 2026. BCG says spending doubled in a year, and the post says tripled in two years, which was not seen in the sources read, so unsupported here, not refuted. The Jan 2026 AI Radar figure of 0.8% to about 1.7% is an expectation for 2026, not the same measure. 'The budget chart is the org chart' is the author's opinion.
Related work
- BCG: as AI investments surge, CEOs take the lead ↗Jan 12, 2026.
- BCG: AI at Work, why strategy matters more than tools ↗Jun 3, 2026.
- BCG press release ↗Sep 30, 2026.
Watch next
- Check BCG's earlier reports for the 2024 spending share.
Sources
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 1 October 2026 at 10:18 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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