Published: 16 January 2026
Gartner sees a clear return to a sustained growth cycle in infrastructure software, with total spend projected to rise from $442 billion in 2024 to nearly $788 billion by 2029, driven primarily by databases, security, networking, and cloud-native demand. Growth is increasingly concentrated rather than broad-based, with DBMS emerging as the dominant engine as enterprises converge transactional, analytical, and AI workloads into a single “AI control plane.” GenAI spending is scaling explosively, but value capture remains uneven, with differentiation shifting from experimentation to execution, governance, and cost discipline. Legacy segments, such as virtualization, are in structural decline, while markets like ITOM, ITSM, CPaaS, and CCaaS are being reshaped by AI, consolidation, and buyer pressure on ROI. Overall, long-term winners will be platforms that combine scale, operational efficiency, and measurable outcomes rather than broad AI feature claims.
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