2026 might be the year your product gets cut
2026 might be the year your product gets cut. Even if it works.
Not because budgets are shrinking. Because AI budgets are growing.
Many companies are funding AI by cutting tools.
SAP shared research citing ADAPT’s CIO Edge showing 𝟲𝟴% of tech leaders plan to consolidate vendors, with many targeting about a 𝟮𝟬% reduction in vendor count.
Another survey of 𝟭,𝟬𝟬𝟬+ tech professionals found:
• 𝟵𝟬% say consolidation is now a priority • 𝟳𝟯% expect software investment to keep growing while vendor counts shrink
That tells you how companies are paying for AI.
Before large AI programs start, CIOs clean up the stack.
They remove overlapping tools. They collapse platforms. They standardize how data moves across systems.
Because AI does not run well in fragmented environments.
So the fastest way forward is simplification. And that creates a new reality for B2B software.
Your biggest competitor is often not the vendor you track in Salesforce.
It is the platform your customer already owns that can absorb your use case. It is the “good enough” module bundled into a suite.
It is the internal mandate to retire point tools so AI programs can move faster. That changes the sales conversation.
“Better software” is rarely enough.
Buyers now want to know:
What does this replace? What can we retire because of it? How much simpler does our stack become?
If your customers cut 𝟮𝟬% of their tools tomorrow, which category would lose the most vendors?
Security RevOps Data ITSM Other
Curious what you are seeing in real vendor reviews.
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