The IT industry has always moved fast. But the last two years have felt different — not just in pace, but in kind. The arrival of production-grade AI, the normalisation of hybrid infrastructure, the steady consolidation of cloud platforms, and the emergence of entirely new threat surfaces have converged to create a landscape that few IT roadmaps from 2023 anticipated accurately.
For technology leaders, the challenge is no longer keeping up with individual trends in isolation. It is making coherent decisions across a portfolio of interconnected shifts, where a choice about AI infrastructure affects security posture, which affects vendor relationships, which affects workforce planning. The analyst community has been watching this complexity accumulate. What follows is a synthesis of where that analysis points — not a prediction, but a map of the tensions and the directions most likely to matter.
A Glimmer of Hope: Anticipated Revenue Growth and Margin Stabilization
Nomura, a prominent global financial services firm, articulates a cautiously optimistic forecast for the IT sector in 2026. The firm anticipates a marginal yet discernible improvement in revenue growth, indicative of a slow but steady recovery from recent operational challenges. This projected revenue uptick is expected to be complemented by a modest enhancement in profit margins. Nomura’s overarching sentiment suggests that while a robust revival in discretionary client spending—a key driver for IT services projects—remains largely contingent on broader macroeconomic improvements, the sector is progressively establishing a more stable operational foundation.
The future of IT will not be defined by who adopts the most technology, but by who adapts the fastest to constant change
AI Moves from Experiment to Infrastructure
The most significant shift in enterprise IT between 2024 and 2026 has been the reclassification of AI from discretionary innovation budget to core infrastructure spend. This was not inevitable — there was a credible scenario in which AI pilots produced underwhelming ROI and investment moderated. That scenario did not materialise.
What happened instead is that a critical mass of enterprises crossed the threshold from experimentation to dependency. AI-assisted code generation, document processing, customer service automation, and internal knowledge retrieval moved into production environments. Once workflows are redesigned around AI assistance, the cost of removing it becomes prohibitive. AI became sticky.
The implication for IT leadership is architectural. The question is no longer “should we invest in AI” but “what infrastructure does AI require us to build?” The answers — GPU capacity, vector databases, model orchestration layers, observability for AI systems, data pipelines that can serve model training and inference simultaneously — represent a significant capital and operational commitment. Organisations that treated AI as an application layer are discovering it is, in fact, a platform that needs to be treated with the same rigour as any other core infrastructure.
Analysts tracking enterprise IT spend in 2026 are consistent on one point: the AI infrastructure buildout is in its second inning, not its seventh. The majority of enterprise investment is still ahead.
Top Picks for 2026: Navigating the Landscape
Analysts are uniform in advocating a selective investment strategy, favoring companies strategically positioned to adeptly navigate the prevailing economic and technological environment.
Nomura’s Top Picks: Infosys, Coforge, and eClerx are highlighted for their perceived resilience and growth potential.
CLSA’s Preferences: Within large-cap IT firms, Tech Mahindra and Infosys are favored. For mid-cap plays, Persistent Systems and Coforge are the preferred selections.
Jefferies’ Selections: Concentrating on mid-sized IT firms, Jefferies identifies Coforge and Sagility as promising prospects.
Notably, Coforge emerges as a consistent top pick across Nomura, CLSA (mid-cap preference), and Jefferies, underscoring its perceived robust growth potential and operational resilience amidst market challenges. Infosys also frequently appears as a favored large-cap stock, suggesting confidence in its strategic positioning and execution capabilities.