Gartner’s $6.37T IT spend forecast is pulling marketing AI agents into enterprise buying cycles faster

Gartner forecasts IT spending to reach $6.37 trillion by 2026, a surge that is impacting the funding, securing, and procurement of marketing AI agents. This growth in infrastructure spending is accelerating the integration of AI in enterprise buying cycles.

Gartner’s call that worldwide IT spending will hit $6.37 trillion in 2026 is landing as an infrastructure story. But it’s also an application story, because the category that’s getting pulled into the “real IT” budget fastest is agentic AI, including marketing and revenue-facing agents that used to get bought as lightweight SaaS add-ons.

The signal is in the mix. Gartner’s July 2026 forecast projects 14.2% growth in overall IT spending year over year, from $5.577 trillion in 2025 to $6.369 trillion in 2026. The fastest growth is in data center systems, forecast to rise 62.5% to $822 billion, and infrastructure as a service, forecast to rise 29.3% to $287 billion, according to Gartner’s press release.

At the same time, vendor positioning is hardening around “AI agents” as a distinct procurement conversation. WRITER said it was named a “Market Shaper” in Gartner’s July 2026 Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Agents for Marketing Startup Vendors, following what it described as a year of platform expansion, according to a Business Wire announcement.