Adrian Vidal
adrianna-vidal
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April 22, 2026

The State of 'State of AI' Reports in 2026

8 min read

Adrian Vidal
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In 2026, "State of AI" became it's own report genre. Every major consulting firm, research institution, and even technology company published one. A few published several. This tracker compiles the credible ones, organized by focus area, with descriptions focused on methodology and scope so you can figure out which reports are actually worth your time. We'll keep adding reports as they drop.

Publisher Report Category What it covers
Accenture Pulse of Change 2026 Enterprise Survey of 3,650 C-suite executives on AI adoption and organizational change. Part of Accenture's annual Change Index tracking how leaders are managing transformation at scale.
Accenture The Age of Co-Intelligence
Published March 2026
Workforce Accenture research examining the shift from AI as a productivity tool to AI as a collaborative partner in decision-making and execution. Draws on task-level analysis across 18 industries using O*NET and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
ARISE State of Clinical AI Report 2026 Industry - Healthcare & Life Sciences Annual synthesis from the ARISE Stanford-Harvard Research Network covering the most significant developments, evidence, and challenges in clinical AI. Aimed at clinicians, health system leaders, and policymakers.
Bessemer Venture Partners State of Health AI 2026 Industry - Healthcare & Life Sciences Bessemer Venture Partners annual look at AI investment and adoption in health. Maps the company landscape, funding trends, and where agentic AI is beginning to take hold in clinical and administrative workflows.
Brookings Assessing the State of AI Adoption Across the Federal Government Industry - Public Sector Brookings Institution analysis of AI adoption across the federal government, drawing on agency-submitted use case inventories. Covers adoption rates, deployment contexts, and mission-critical applications across 41 agencies.
CB Insights State of AI Q1 2026 Spending / Cost Quarterly snapshot of AI funding, deals, and market trends through Q1 2026. Tracks private investment by sector, geography, and stage.
Cisco State of AI Security 2026 Governance Cisco's annual report on AI security, covering threat intelligence, global AI policy, and security research. Examines AI-specific vulnerabilities including prompt injection, jailbreaks, supply chain risks, and threats emerging from agentic AI deployments.
Cisco State of Industrial AI Report: Manufacturing 2026 Industry - Manufacturing Cisco report on AI adoption in manufacturing, covering use cases, readiness gaps, and infrastructure requirements across industrial environments. Part of Cisco's broader Industrial AI research series.
CSET / Georgetown Mapping the AI Governance Landscape: April 2026 Update
Published April 2026
Governance Georgetown CSET research mapping 1,000+ AI governance documents across risks, actors, industry sectors, lifecycle stages, and legislative status. A research-grade resource for tracking how global AI governance is taking shape.
Data & AI Leadership Exchange 2026 AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey Enterprise 15th annual benchmark survey of ~110 Fortune 1000 companies and global brands, focused on the CDO role, data and AI investment priorities, and organizational readiness. Published by Randy Bean and widely cited in HBR, MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal.
Databricks State of AI Agents 2026
Published January 2026
Enterprise Draws on anonymized telemetry from 20,000+ organizations including 60%+ of the Fortune 500. Covers enterprise AI agent adoption, multi-agent architecture trends, and the role of unified governance in scaling AI.
DDN State of AI Infrastructure 2026
Published January 2026
Infrastructure Survey of 600 senior IT and business leaders on AI infrastructure readiness. Conducted by Vanson Bourne in partnership with DDN, Cognizant, and Google Cloud. Covers complexity, skills gaps, and barriers to deployment.
Deloitte State of AI in the Enterprise 2026 Enterprise Annual survey of 3,235 senior leaders across 24 countries, including C-suite and board members. Focuses on how organizations are moving from AI ambition to operational activation.
Deloitte State of AI — Life Sciences & Health Care Industry - Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry-specific cut of Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise survey. Focuses on how biopharma, medtech, health plans, and health systems are approaching AI adoption, with attention to clinical, operational, and regulatory considerations.
Deloitte State of AI — Financial Services Industry - Financial Services Industry-specific cut of Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise survey. Examines AI adoption patterns, investment priorities, and governance approaches across banking, insurance, and asset management.
Deloitte State of AI — Energy, Resources & Industrials Industry - Energy & Industrials Industry-specific cut of Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise survey. Draws on responses from senior leaders across energy, resources, and industrials companies to show how AI adoption and priorities differ in this sector.
Deloitte State of AI — Technology, Media & Telecom Industry - Tech, Media & Telecom Industry-specific cut of Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise survey. Examines how TMT companies are deploying AI at scale, covering product strategy, internal operations, and the gap between AI ambition and production readiness.
Doximity State of AI in Medicine 2026 Industry - Healthcare & Life Sciences Annual Doximity survey of practicing physicians on AI use in clinical settings. Covers tools in active use, areas of application, and physician attitudes toward AI in patient care.
Epoch AI Trends in AI
Living tracker, updated 2026
Infrastructure Living research database from Epoch AI tracking training compute, hardware performance, model scaling, and cost trends over time. Updated continuously with underlying data available for download.
Gartner Top Predictions for Data and Analytics in 2026
Published March 2026
Enterprise Annual predictions report from Gartner's data and analytics research team. Covers enterprise AI spending, data readiness gaps, infrastructure investment, and emerging disruptions in the productivity software market.
Google Cloud AI Agent Trends 2026 Enterprise Google Cloud report identifying five major shifts in enterprise AI agent adoption. Based on executive survey data and Google Cloud platform insights across industries.
Grant Thornton 2026 AI Impact Survey
Published April 2026
Governance Survey of 950 C-suite and senior business leaders across 10 industries, conducted February-March 2026. Focuses on AI governance readiness, audit confidence, and the relationship between governance maturity and business performance.
IAPP AI Governance Vendor Report 2026
Published January 2026
Governance IAPP report mapping the AI governance vendor ecosystem. Focuses on comprehensive governance providers rather than point solutions. Aimed at organizations evaluating governance tooling as AI adoption scales.
ICONIQ State of AI: Bi-Annual Snapshot — January 2026 Spending / Cost Bi-annual survey of ~300 executives at AI software companies, tracking business model trends, pricing shifts, and financial performance benchmarks across the AI software market.
Info-Tech Research Group AI Trends 2026 Enterprise Info-Tech Research Group's annual analysis of the AI trends most likely to influence IT strategy and leadership. Covers agentic AI, AI governance frameworks, enterprise AI tooling, and the tension between AI innovation and regulatory control. Aimed at CIOs and IT decision-makers across the Global 2000.
International AI Safety Report International AI Safety Report 2026
Published February 2026
Governance Led by Yoshua Bengio and authored by 100+ AI experts, with advisory panels from 29 nations plus the UN, OECD, and EU. Created following the 2023 Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit to build a shared international scientific understanding of AI risk.
KPMG Global Tech Report 2026 Enterprise Survey of 2,500 technology executives across 27 countries. Examines whether governance, oversight, and organizational readiness are keeping pace with AI adoption.
KPMG Global AI Quarterly Pulse Survey — Q1 2026 Spending / Cost Quarterly pulse survey of business leaders on AI spending intentions, deployment timelines, and budget commitments. Tracks sentiment on AI investment even amid broader economic uncertainty.
McKinsey State of AI: How Organizations Are Rewiring to Capture Value Enterprise Annual survey of business leaders on AI adoption, investment, and business impact. Tracks how organizations are restructuring to capture value from AI, with a focus on what separates high performers from the rest.
McKinsey State of AI Trust 2026: Shifting to the Agentic Era Governance McKinsey survey examining AI trust, governance maturity, and the barriers organizations face as they scale agentic AI. Tracks responsible AI program adoption and risk management practices across functions.
MIT Technology Review Bridging the Operational AI Gap
Published March 2026
Enterprise MIT Technology Review Insights research report based on executive interviews and survey data. Examines why AI deployment stalls and what separates organizations that successfully scale from those that don't.
NTT DATA 2026 Global AI Report: Manufacturing Industry - Manufacturing NTT DATA global survey of manufacturing AI leaders on investment priorities, architecture decisions, and governance approaches. Part of NTT DATA's 2026 Global AI Report series.
NVIDIA State of AI Report 2026 Enterprise Cross-industry survey of 3,200+ respondents spanning financial services, healthcare, retail, telecom, and manufacturing. Covers AI adoption rates, ROI, open source strategy, and agentic AI rollout.
NVIDIA State of AI in Healthcare and Life Sciences 2026
2nd Annual Report
Industry - Healthcare & Life Sciences Second annual NVIDIA survey of 600+ healthcare and life sciences professionals on AI adoption and ROI. Covers medical imaging, drug discovery, administrative workflow, and the shift from experimentation to production.
NVIDIA State of AI in Financial Services 2026
6th Annual Report
Industry - Financial Services Sixth annual NVIDIA survey of 800+ financial services professionals on AI adoption, ROI, and strategy. Covers use cases across banking, insurance, and asset management, with a focus on open source models and agentic AI.
NVIDIA State of AI in Telecommunications 2026 Industry - Tech, Media & Telecom NVIDIA survey of 1,000+ telecom professionals worldwide on AI adoption, use cases, ROI, and infrastructure planning. Covers AI in network operations, service delivery, and the path toward 6G readiness.
NVIDIA State of AI in Retail and CPG 2026 Industry - Sales, Marketing & Retail Annual NVIDIA survey of retail and CPG professionals on AI adoption across supply chain, customer experience, and store operations. Part of NVIDIA's vertical-specific State of AI series.
OneTrust Governing AI in 2026: A Global Regulatory Guide Policy / Legal White paper covering binding AI laws now in effect across the EU, US, APAC, and Latin America. Aimed at compliance and privacy teams translating legal requirements into operational controls and documentation.
PwC AI Performance Study Spending / Cost Global study of 1,217 senior executives across 25 sectors examining how AI-driven financial performance is distributed across organizations. Part of PwC's AI Performance Study series, focused on what separates companies that capture economic value from AI from those that don't.
Rotascale State of Enterprise AI 2026: The Governance Imperative Governance Rotascale report examining how enterprises are building governance frameworks to manage AI systems in production. Covers organizational oversight, risk management, compliance, and the structures organizations need as AI moves from experimentation into regulated environments.
Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index Report
Published April 2026
Research Annual 400+ page index from Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI. Covers technical performance, investment, responsible AI, education, policy, and public opinion across nine chapters. Includes full underlying datasets.
WEF AI at Work: From Productivity Hacks to Organizational Transformation Workforce WEF report examining how organizations are moving beyond AI productivity tools toward structural transformation. Covers workflow redesign, talent strategy, and what effective leadership looks like at scale.
WEF Organizational Transformation in the Age of AI Enterprise WEF companion report to AI at Work, focusing on the organizational structures and cultural conditions that allow AI to scale. Based on interviews and case studies with global enterprises.
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Resource
Monthly cost ($)
Number of resources
Time (months)
Total cost ($)
Software/Data engineer
$15,000
3
12
$540,000
Data analyst
$12,000
2
6
$144,000
Business analyst
$10,000
1
3
$30,000
Data/product manager
$20,000
2
6
$240,000
Total cost
$954,000
Role
Goals
Common needs
Data engineers
Overall data flow. Data is fresh and operating at full volume. Jobs are always running, so data outages don't impact downstream systems.
Freshness + volume
Monitoring
Schema change detection
Lineage monitoring
Data scientists
Specific datasets in great detail. Looking for outliers, duplication, and other—sometimes subtle—issues that could affect their analysis or machine learning models.
Freshness monitoringCompleteness monitoringDuplicate detectionOutlier detectionDistribution shift detectionDimensional slicing and dicing
Analytics engineers
Rapidly testing the changes they’re making within the data model. Move fast and not break things—without spending hours writing tons of pipeline tests.
Lineage monitoringETL blue/green testing
Business intelligence analysts
The business impact of data. Understand where they should spend their time digging in, and when they have a red herring caused by a data pipeline problem.
Integration with analytics toolsAnomaly detectionCustom business metricsDimensional slicing and dicing
Other stakeholders
Data reliability. Customers and stakeholders don’t want data issues to bog them down, delay deadlines, or provide inaccurate information.
Integration with analytics toolsReporting and insights
about the author

Adrian Vidal

Adrian Vidal is a writer and content strategist at Bigeye, where they explore how organizations navigate the practical challenges of scaling AI responsibly. With over 10 years of experience in communications, they focus on translating complex AI governance and data infrastructure challenges into actionable insights for data and AI leaders.

At Bigeye, their work centers on AI trust: examining how organizations build the governance frameworks, data quality foundations, and oversight mechanisms that enable reliable AI at enterprise scale.

Adrian's interest in data privacy and digital rights informs their perspective on building AI systems that organizations, and the people they serve, can actually trust.

about the author

about the author

Adrian Vidal is a writer and content strategist at Bigeye, where they explore how organizations navigate the practical challenges of scaling AI responsibly. With over 10 years of experience in communications, they focus on translating complex AI governance and data infrastructure challenges into actionable insights for data and AI leaders.

At Bigeye, their work centers on AI trust: examining how organizations build the governance frameworks, data quality foundations, and oversight mechanisms that enable reliable AI at enterprise scale.

Adrian's interest in data privacy and digital rights informs their perspective on building AI systems that organizations, and the people they serve, can actually trust.

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