Headline findings
AI purchasing authority is concentrated in senior leadership, while production controls are uneven. The CEO is the most frequently named signer at 49 percent, proving ROI is the leading spending blocker at 54 percent, and the share reporting at least one production agent exceeds the share reporting full real-time cost visibility by 36 percentage points.
Buying authority
- CEO named in AI purchase sign-off: 49 percent (227 of 467).
- CFO or finance named: 31 percent (144 of 467).
- CIO or CTO named: 17 percent (79 of 467).
- Individual business unit named: 10 percent (45 of 467).
- No single owner yet: 13 percent (60 of 467).
AI funding
- Net-new money: 41 percent (159 of 389).
- No clear AI budget yet: 31 percent (120 of 389).
- Reallocated from other software: 20 percent (77 of 389).
- Money that would have gone to headcount: 19 percent (73 of 389).
Spending blockers
- Proving ROI: 54 percent (211 of 389).
- Integration with existing systems: 23 percent (89 of 389).
- Security and compliance: 21 percent (80 of 389).
- Data readiness: 20 percent (79 of 389).
- Talent: 12 percent (45 of 389).
Payback expectations
- Under six months: 53 percent (208 of 389).
- Six to twelve months: 26 percent (101 of 389).
- Twelve to twenty-four months: 10 percent (37 of 389).
- Not sure: 14 percent (53 of 389).
Security
- Securing AI agents and their access: 68 percent (103 of 151).
- Data leaking into AI models: 29 percent (44 of 151).
- Shadow AI: 28 percent (42 of 151).
- AI-enabled attacks: 19 percent (29 of 151).
- Nothing urgent yet: 7 percent (10 of 151).
- Dedicated AI security budget line: 34 percent (52 of 151, any mention).
- Case-by-case funding: 35 percent (53 of 151, any mention).
- Existing security-budget carve-out: 26 percent (40 of 151, any mention).
- No AI security spend: 11 percent (16 of 151).
- Difference between agent-access concern and dedicated-budget-line shares: 34 points.
This 34-point difference compares agent access named as a problem at 68 percent with a dedicated AI security budget line at 34 percent. It does not measure budget adequacy; 35 percent report case-by-case funding and 26 percent report a carve-out from the existing security budget (base 151, any mention).
Marketing and growth
- Beyond the exploration stage with agentic AI: 81 percent (187 of 230).
- Building agentic AI products: 36 percent (82 of 230).
- Piloting agents: 26 percent (59 of 230).
- Running agents in production: 20 percent (46 of 230).
- AI does the work of more people: 46 percent (101 of 218).
- AI creates content faster: 45 percent (99 of 218).
- AI improves customer knowledge: 43 percent (94 of 218).
- Nothing measurable yet: 11 percent (25 of 218).
Founder pricing and buying doorway
- Usage-based pricing: 43 percent (63 of 148).
- Flat subscription: 24 percent (36 of 148).
- Outcome-based pricing: 24 percent (35 of 148).
- Per-seat pricing: 20 percent (29 of 148).
- Not charging yet: 8 percent (12 of 148).
- Business-unit leader named as buying doorway: 39 percent (58 of 148).
- CIO or CTO: 36 percent (53 of 148).
- CFO or finance: 28 percent (41 of 148).
Investor portfolio view
- CEO named as rising AI buying owner: 51 percent (124 of 245).
- CIO or CTO: 24 percent (59 of 245).
- Too early to identify the owner: 22 percent (53 of 245).
- Better products: 51 percent (122 of 237).
- Cutting costs: 35 percent (83 of 237).
- Helping customers: 34 percent (81 of 237).
- Nothing measurable yet: 16 percent (37 of 237).
- Selected at least one positive portfolio impact: 86 percent (205 of 237).
AI Leaders maturity and production
- Exploring: 21 percent (19 of 91).
- Piloting: 20 percent (18 of 91).
- Deployed in production: 46 percent (42 of 91).
- Embedded: 13 percent (12 of 91).
- At least one production agent: 80 percent (60 of 75).
- More than twenty production agents: 29 percent (22 of 75).
- Full real-time AI cost visibility: 44 percent (34 of 77).
- Partial visibility: 39 percent (30 of 77).
- No real-time visibility: 17 percent (13 of 77).
- Difference between production-agent and full-cost-visibility shares: 36 points.
This 36-point difference compares the share reporting at least one production agent with the share reporting full real-time cost visibility. The two questions came from the same event but have bases of 75 and 77; this is not a matched-respondent statistic.
AI Leaders production bottlenecks
- Data access and quality: 39 percent (29 of 75).
- Compute: 29 percent (22 of 75).
- Integration with existing systems: 28 percent (21 of 75).
- Inference cost: 25 percent (19 of 75).
- Governance and approval: 21 percent (16 of 75).
- Agent identity and permissions: 15 percent (11 of 75).
- Talent: 15 percent (11 of 75).
AI Leaders data access
Among all 71 respondents:
- Per-agent credentials: 34 percent (24 of 71).
- Shared service accounts: 25 percent (18 of 71).
- Delegated user identity: 6 percent (4 of 71).
- Credential-free or brokered access: 4 percent (3 of 71).
- Not applicable yet: 31 percent (22 of 71).
Among 49 applicable respondents:
- Per-agent credentials: 49 percent.
- Shared service accounts: 37 percent.
- Delegated user identity: 8 percent.
- Credential-free or brokered access: 6 percent.
Planned AI spend, next twelve months
- Under $100,000: 41 percent (31 of 76).
- $100,000 to $1 million: 22 percent (17 of 76).
- $1 million to $10 million: 12 percent (9 of 76).
- $10 million to $100 million: 3 percent (2 of 76).
- More than $100 million: 7 percent (5 of 76).
- Not sure: 16 percent (12 of 76).
- At least $100,000: 43 percent (33 of 76).
- At least $1 million: 21 percent (16 of 76).
Questions this report answers
Who signs off on AI purchases?
The CEO is most named at 49 percent, followed by finance at 31 percent (base 467, any mention).
What is the leading blocker to more AI spending?
Proving ROI, named by 54 percent (base 389, any mention).
What is the leading AI security problem?
Securing agents and their access, named by 68 percent (base 151, any mention).
What is the biggest production bottleneck?
Data access and quality, named by 39 percent (base 75, any mention).
Key citable facts
- Open Future Forum's October 2026 common instrument finds the CEO in 49 percent of AI sign-off answers and finance in 31 percent (base 467, any mention).
- Proving ROI is the most-named blocker to additional AI spending at 54 percent (base 389, any mention).
- Eighty percent report at least one production agent (base 75), while 44 percent report full real-time AI cost visibility (base 77); these are separate question bases.
October statistical exhibits
Buying and budgets
AI signoff
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | 227 | 49% |
| CFO or finance | 144 | 31% |
| CIO or CTO | 79 | 17% |
| No single owner | 60 | 13% |
| Individual business unit | 45 | 10% |
Base 467; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
AI budget source
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Net-new money | 159 | 41% |
| No clear AI budget | 120 | 31% |
| Other software reallocation | 77 | 20% |
| Would-be headcount money | 73 | 19% |
Base 389; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
AI spending blockers
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Proving ROI | 211 | 54% |
| Integration with existing systems | 89 | 23% |
| Security and compliance | 80 | 21% |
| Data readiness | 79 | 20% |
| Talent | 45 | 12% |
Base 389; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Expected payback
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 6 months | 208 | 53% |
| 6 to 12 months | 101 | 26% |
| 12 to 24 months | 37 | 10% |
| Not sure | 53 | 14% |
Base 389; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Security exhibits
AI security problem
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Securing AI agents and their access | 103 | 68% |
| Data leaking into AI models | 44 | 29% |
| Shadow AI | 42 | 28% |
| AI-enabled attacks | 29 | 19% |
| Nothing urgent yet | 10 | 7% |
Base 151; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
AI security funding
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Case by case | 53 | 35% |
| Dedicated AI security line | 52 | 34% |
| Existing security budget | 40 | 26% |
| No AI security spend | 16 | 11% |
Base 151; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Marketing and founders
Marketing agentic stage
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Building agentic AI products | 82 | 36% |
| Piloting agents | 59 | 26% |
| Running agents in production | 46 | 20% |
| Still exploring | 43 | 19% |
Base 230.
Marketing AI impact
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Doing the work of more people | 101 | 46% |
| Creating content faster | 99 | 45% |
| Knowing the customer better | 94 | 43% |
| Nothing measurable yet | 25 | 11% |
Base 218; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Founder pricing
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | 63 | 43% |
| Flat subscription | 36 | 24% |
| Outcome-based | 35 | 24% |
| Per seat | 29 | 20% |
| Not charging yet | 12 | 8% |
Base 148; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Founder view of the buying doorway
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Business-unit leader | 58 | 39% |
| CIO or CTO | 53 | 36% |
| CFO or finance | 41 | 28% |
| Other | 18 | 12% |
| Individual users or bottom-up | 16 | 11% |
| Still figuring it out | 6 | 4% |
Base 148; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Investor view
Investor view of AI ownership
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | 124 | 51% |
| CIO or CTO | 59 | 24% |
| Too early to say | 53 | 22% |
| Individual teams | 45 | 18% |
| Bottom-up | 45 | 18% |
| CFO or finance | 30 | 12% |
Base 245; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Investor view of portfolio impact
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Better products | 122 | 51% |
| Cutting costs | 83 | 35% |
| Helping customers | 81 | 34% |
| Nothing measurable yet | 37 | 16% |
Base 237; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
AI Leaders production
AI maturity
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Exploring | 19 | 21% |
| Piloting | 18 | 20% |
| Deployed in production | 42 | 46% |
| Embedded | 12 | 13% |
Base 91.
Production-agent count
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| None | 9 | 12% |
| 1 to 5 | 27 | 36% |
| 6 to 20 | 11 | 15% |
| More than 20 | 22 | 29% |
| Not sure | 6 | 8% |
Base 75.
AI cost visibility
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Full real-time visibility | 34 | 44% |
| Partial visibility | 30 | 39% |
| No real-time visibility | 13 | 17% |
Base 77.
Production bottlenecks
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Data access and quality | 29 | 39% |
| Compute | 22 | 29% |
| Integration with existing systems | 21 | 28% |
| Inference cost | 19 | 25% |
| Governance and approval | 16 | 21% |
| Agent identity and permissions | 11 | 15% |
| Talent | 11 | 15% |
Base 75; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Agent access method
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Per-agent credentials | 24 | 34% |
| Shared service accounts | 18 | 25% |
| Delegated user identity | 4 | 6% |
| Credential-free or brokered access | 3 | 4% |
| Not applicable yet | 22 | 31% |
Base 71.
Planned spend
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $100K | 31 | 41% |
| $100K to $1M | 17 | 22% |
| $1M to $10M | 9 | 12% |
| $10M to $100M | 2 | 3% |
| Over $100M | 5 | 7% |
| Not sure | 12 | 16% |
Base 76.
Cross-cuts
| Respondent seat | Base | CEO | Finance | CIO or CTO | No owner | Business unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEO or founder | 118 | 80% | 19% | 15% | 3% | 4% |
| Finance | 67 | 27% | 67% | 9% | 13% | 6% |
| Technology | 25 | 24% | 20% | 52% | 16% | 8% |
| Investor or partner | 55 | 42% | 18% | 13% | 24% | 11% |
Selected title-classified groups shown: 265 of 467 respondents. The other/unclassified group (195) and smaller groups (7) are omitted. Any mention; bases from 10 to 39 are directional.
| Group | Base | Full visibility | Partial visibility | No visibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exploring | 18 | 22% | 33% | 44% |
| Piloting | 14 | 36% | 43% | 21% |
| Deployed in production | 33 | 61% | 33% | 6% |
| Embedded (removing it would change our cost structure or hiring plan) | 10 | 50% | 50% | 0% |
Matched respondents answering both questions; base 75. Small row bases are directional.
| Investor seniority | Base | Better products | Cost reduction | Customer help | Nothing measurable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partner, founder or C-suite | 150 | 51% | 35% | 34% | 13% |
| VP, principal, director or head | 18 | 78% | 44% | 56% | 11% |
| Other titled respondent | 69 | 46% | 33% | 29% | 23% |
Title classification by keyword; any mention. The 18-person middle group is directional.
Network scope
| Network measure | October research layer |
|---|---|
| Event exports | 49 |
| All rows | 28,195 |
| Invited-only rows excluded | 21,507 |
| Non-invited registrations | 6,688 |
| Unique non-invited email addresses | 4,633 |
Research answers were collected through September 30, 2026. The network totals include one pending application created October 1 that contains no core research answer. Counts match the locked October package.
| Event | Non-invited registrations | Unique non-invited emails | Approved | Declined |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ThinkingAI Agentic Growth Summit 2026 | 1,497 | 1,468 | 947 | 514 |
| VC - Start Up Circle Block Party | 357 | 357 | 177 | 27 |
| SNOWFLAKE SUMMIT 26 Side Event | 323 | 323 | 195 | 127 |
| Enterprise AI at Microsoft | 314 | 314 | 157 | 157 |
| Investors Summer Drinks | 300 | 300 | 117 | 181 |
| CEO PRIVATE DINNER | 256 | 214 | 51 | 193 |
| Agentic AI Meets Go-to-Market: Panel and Mixer for Marketing and Growth Leaders | 252 | 252 | 120 | 129 |
| AI Agents for Fintech Engineering Teams | 242 | 242 | 166 | 26 |
| CISO Roundtable Dinner | 234 | 195 | 55 | 170 |
| Enterprise AI & Agentic Security Dinner | 217 | 217 | 61 | 151 |
Event-level counts use the 49 current exports after one superseded ThinkingAI snapshot was excluded. Repeated display titles can represent distinct event instances. “Non-invited” includes approved, declined, pending and waitlisted applications; it does not mean attendee.
When citing these tables, include the response base, retain the non-exclusive treatment of multi-select answers, label directional cuts, and do not describe carried-forward founder or investor figures as monthly movement.
Methodology
Statistics are calculated from first-party event registration instruments with research answers collected through September 30, 2026. Invited-only rows are excluded. Respondents are deduplicated by email for each question, with the latest answer retained. Multi-select questions use any mention and may sum above 100 percent. No headline is published below 40 responses. The sample is selective and not a probability sample. Founder and investor figures are carried forward from the latest comparable instrument when no new October version exists. One pending application created October 1 is included in the network totals but contains no core research answer.
The 86 percent positive-impact share is calculated at respondent level from three selections: better products, cutting costs or helping customers. It is not a measure of investment conviction. Five respondents selected “nothing measurable” alongside a positive impact, so the figure is not the simple complement of the 16 percent “nothing measurable” line.
Related reading
Citation and editions
Suggested citation: Newlands, M. (2026). Executive AI Statistics, October 2026. Open Future Forum.
Work These Questions with Peers
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