Unisys has released a new global report, “Unisys AI & Cloud Insights Report 2026: The benchmarks, the gaps, and what to do next,” which examines how organisations are turning AI and cloud investments into measurable outcomes amid rising cybersecurity concerns. Findings indicate organisations are at an inflection point: confidence in AI and cloud capabilities is rising, while expectations from boards and stakeholders to deliver immediate results are accelerating.
The study surveyed 1,000 senior IT and business decision-makers across the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Key research findings include:
Confidence rises as performance falls: 90% of organisations say they have the right architecture to support large-scale data-driven decision-making, up from 72% in 2025. Yet fewer organisations are exceeding operational efficiency expectations.
Cybersecurity risk surges: Nearly half (49%) of organisations experienced a cybersecurity breach in the past 12 months — nearly three times higher than the prior year (17%).
Agentic AI hype outpaces adoption: While 75% say agentic AI will be essential to managing cloud environments, only 23% have begun scaling it across their business.
Security drives innovation: 96% say their cloud security approach enhances their ability to adopt new technologies faster than competitors, up from 60% in 2025.
“Building a strong technology foundation is an important first step. IT and business leaders must show that their investments are paying off and delivering real growth,” said Mike Thomson, chief executive officer and president, Unisys. “This means aligning IT to outcomes, deploying agentic AI where it creates value and treating security as the foundation that makes all of it possible, rather than a constraint.”
Technology Confidence is Outpacing Business Outcomes
organisations have made meaningful progress building the technical foundations required for scalable AI and cloud environments. Of those surveyed, 90% of organisations report having the right architecture to support large-scale data-driven decision-making (up 18 percentage points from 2025), while 90% also say they are effectively leveraging automation to optimize their IT environments.
Despite growing confidence in AI and cloud capabilities, organisations are converting that progress into measurable outcomes at a slower rate. Only 65% report that operational efficiency exceeds expectations — down from 80% in 2025.
To bridge this gap, organisations should prioritize converting technical capability into measurable outcomes. Addressing challenges such as talent shortages (27%) and data management and integration issues (26%) — top barriers identified in the study — will be critical to scaling new tools and delivering business impact.
From Technical Progress to Business Impact
Currently, organisations cite technical modernization (39%) and enabling AI and automation (36%) as their top objectives for application transformation efforts, ranking well above more tangible business benefits such as reducing operating costs (27%), improving customer experience (24%) and accelerating speed to market (21%).
At the same time, fewer than half (42%) of business leaders view cloud and IT as profit centers rather than cost centers, reflecting rising expectations that technology demonstrates clear, near-term business impact.
Agentic AI Moves From Hype to Measured Adoption
organisations are increasingly looking to agentic AI to manage their growing number of cloud applications (75%). Most organisations remain in early stages of adoption (77%), indicating a more deliberate approach to deployment.
While organisations continue to prepare for agentic AI adoption, they report progress in identifying priority use cases (89%), upskilling employees (87%), securing executive buy-in (87%), and partnering with AI and technology vendors (86%) — key steps required for effective agentic AI deployment.
Cyber Risks Rise as Security Shapes AI Adoption
As AI systems gain greater autonomy and expanded access to data and workflows, the threat landscape has intensified. In the past 12 months, nearly half (49%) of organisations experienced a cybersecurity breach, compared with 17% in the prior period — emphasizing the growing importance of resilient security strategies.
To respond, organisations are reframing their cybersecurity approach, recognizing the need to scale AI without compromising resilience. Currently, 93% say that cloud security capabilities significantly affect the level of autonomy they grant AI systems.
Encouragingly, nearly all organisations (96%) also view security as an enabler of innovation, helping them adopt new technologies faster. organisations that embed security into their AI and cloud strategies will be better positioned to scale innovation with confidence.