IDC: 62% of enterprises lean on promo credits for AI agents; pricing reset looms in 2027
perilli · x · 2026-10-26
IDC's Sourcing Advisory team reports frontier AI labs offering steep discounts on enterprise seats and API access. Its FERS Survey 2026 Wave 5 (N=1,666) finds 43% of organizations rely on vendor promo credits or introductory rates for 26–50% of their AI agent budgets, 33% for 1–25%, and 19% for 51–75%. When these deals expire next year, enterprises worldwide will have to re-run the business-case test on their AI initiatives.
Related event: IDC: Many Enterprise AI Agent Budgets Ride on Expiring Vendor Discounts(3 posts)→
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