01 / THE MARKET

Investment is accelerating.
Context matters.

A larger AI market creates room for more valuable customer conversations. Understanding what the numbers actually measure is the starting point.

ENTERPRISE AI DEPLOYMENT / 2026

$176.8B

US dollars · modelled annualised run rate

Menlo Ventures · 3 November 2026 Modelled annualised estimates · nearly 400 US enterprise decision-makers · fieldwork 8–26 September 2026

Deployment infrastructure$99.5B

AI applications$77.3B

Two components of the same deployment estimate. AI development / model-building spend is a separate market definition.

5.4×2026 vs 2025
$33B → $176.8B · reclassified taxonomy

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM

More than a reshuffle of existing spend.

Menlo estimates that net-new budgets funded 55% of incremental AI investment. This is a funding mix, not a share of all IT budgets.

55%22%23%

Menlo Ventures · 3 November 2026 Modelled annualised estimates · nearly 400 US enterprise decision-makers · fieldwork 8–26 September 2026

The 23% remainder is calculated; it is not all labour. Nested 13 + 9 points are already inside the 22%.

BRING THE LENS CLOSER

Explore customer support / success alongside adjacent and comparison categories.

THE STRATEGIC INTERPRETATION

Discover work that matters to the business, with a clear owner, baseline and definition of success.

Explore how orchestration, integrations, knowledge and governance support the customer’s operating environment.

Evaluate adoption and full cost against verified results. Incremental market spend is an opportunity to earn, not a revenue entitlement.

Candidate interpretation. Not a Menlo endorsement of Genesys or a forecast of Genesys revenue.