Ives Sees Major 2026 AI Rollout for 3 Tech Giants After Sell-off

Enterprise AI adoption is rapidly accelerating from pilot programs to full-scale deployment, creating a buying opportunity in software giants like Microsoft (MSFT), Salesforce (CRM), and ServiceNow (NOW) after a recent market sell-off, according to a new analyst note from Wedbush. The firm's checks indicate 2026 is shaping up as a major rollout year for enterprise AI.

"After weeks of industry checks, the message from CIOs is clear: AI adoption is moving fast from experimentation to deployment," Dan Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, said in a note to clients on April 8.

Ives's bullish outlook is based on conversations with chief information officers who are actively identifying and implementing AI use cases. This view is supported by broader industry data, such as a recent Cisco report finding that 61 percent of industrial organizations are already running AI in their live operations, with 20 percent reporting mature, scaled deployments. The commentary suggests that negative sentiment in the software sector has overlooked the tangible pace of AI integration.

For investors, this signals that the window to act on the AI deployment cycle may be closing. The commentary from Wedbush could trigger a rebound in cloud and AI software stocks as the market recalibrates expectations from a focus on high-level AI training to the lucrative phase of enterprise deployment and monetization.

From Experimentation to Enterprise Scale

The core of the investment thesis is the transition from AI as a theoretical tool to a core operational component. According to Ives, enterprises are moving past the initial "tire-kicking" phase and are now embedding AI into their core workflows. This shift is expected to unlock new revenue streams and efficiency gains for the software platforms enabling it.

This trend is not isolated to a single vertical. Data from Cisco's "State of Industrial AI Report" shows that 83 percent of industrial firms plan to increase their AI spending, highlighting a broad-based commitment to funding these rollouts. The report, which surveyed over 1,000 operational technology leaders, found that use cases like predictive maintenance, process automation, and energy forecasting are already delivering measurable benefits.

Infrastructure and Security Gaps Remain

While the software-led AI boom accelerates, its pace will be dictated by the readiness of underlying infrastructure. The same Cisco study underscores that scaling AI is not just a software challenge. About 40 percent of industrial leaders cited cybersecurity as the single biggest obstacle to expanding their AI initiatives.

Furthermore, 97 percent of organizations expect AI workloads to increase demands on their network infrastructure, with more than half anticipating a need for higher connectivity and reliability. This suggests that companies providing networking hardware and cybersecurity solutions, like Cisco (CSCO), are poised to benefit from the second-order effects of the AI software deployment wave championed by firms like Microsoft and Salesforce.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.