IBM Spending Intentions Remain 'Deeply Negative' in CIO Survey, Bernstein Reports

A new Bernstein survey of enterprise technology leaders indicates that spending intentions for IBM (NYSE: IBM) remain "deeply negative" and are continuing to worsen. This places the legacy tech giant in a weak position relative to its peers, even as chief information officers (CIOs) maintain a broadly constructive outlook for overall IT spending in 2026.

Survey Highlights

The May/June survey, which polled 100 CIOs across the U.S. and Europe, found that sentiment toward IBM is deteriorating. This contrasts with the broader market, where Bernstein forecasts IT spending growth of 12% for 2026, a figure in line with estimates from technology research firm Gartner.

Bernstein analyst Mark Newman noted a regional divergence in sentiment, with European CIOs becoming more pessimistic than their American counterparts. Overall, the firm stated that IT spending has historically shown a positive correlation with improving corporate earnings growth, which has risen to 24.4% from 15.3% last November.

Competitive Landscape

Spending intentions for technology vendors remain highly polarized, according to the report. IBM was grouped with HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise as having "deeply negative net spending intentions." However, the survey noted that sentiment for both HP and HPE was improving, while IBM's was not.

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In contrast, key findings for other vendors include:

• Dell continued to fare better than its infrastructure peers and showed improvement from previous surveys.
• Apple was the only vendor with non-negative net spending intentions in hardware and infrastructure over a five-year horizon.
• Microsoft, Amazon, and ServiceNow ranked highest for spending intentions in cloud and software.
• Microsoft and OpenAI were viewed by CIOs as the leading long-term platforms for artificial intelligence.

Shifting IT Priorities

The survey underscores a clear shift in enterprise spending priorities, which presents a headwind for IBM's traditional business lines. CIOs identified their top spending categories as cybersecurity software, Generative AI, and storage.

Spending intentions were weakest for traditional infrastructure, including x86 servers, printers, and mainframes—a core IBM market. Bernstein reported that mainframe sentiment was "negative overall and broadly stable" compared to its November survey, with only 14% of mainframe users intending to add capacity.