The ai market just admitted that agents are still a sideshow. gartner raised its 2026 forecast to…
the ai market just admitted that agents are still a sideshow. gartner raised its 2026 forecast to $2.7t, up 49.5%, yet agentic ai is “attention, not scale” while infrastructure eats over half of it — $1.43t.
agents get the attention, gpus get the money.
Context
Verified source: Gartner's Sep 16, 2026 press release forecasts worldwide AI spending at $2.7 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% year over year. THE Journal reports $2.67 trillion, with AI infrastructure at nearly $1.5 trillion, about 56% of the total, and says Gartner raised its 2026 forecast.
9to5Windows adds a further 36.2% growth forecast for the following year.
The $2.7 trillion, the 49.5% and the raised forecast match Gartner and THE Journal; the release is dated Sep 16, two weeks before the post. The post puts infrastructure at $1.43 trillion; the report read says nearly $1.5 trillion, or about 56%, so the exact $1.43 trillion was not seen in the sources read, so unsupported here, not refuted. The quote 'attention, not scale' about agentic AI was also not seen in the sources read, so unsupported here, not refuted. 'Agents get the attention, GPUs get the money' is the author's opinion.
Related work
- Gartner press release ↗Sep 16, 2026.
- THE Journal ↗Sep 21, 2026.
- 9to5Windows ↗Sep 24, 2026.
Watch next
- Open the Gartner release for its category breakdown and the agentic AI line.
Sources
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 1 October 2026 at 05:14 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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