As we head into 2025 budgeting season, the question on everyone’s minds is this: will the new year bring a return to robust tech budgets? Our latest State of Enterprise Tech Spending report provides a sneak peek.

As in previous quarters, we polled 100 CXOs who collectively represent over $35B in annual technology spending; our goal was, as always, to gauge the budget planning and overall sentiment of large enterprise technology buyers. To catch up on previous reports, check out what we published in March 2023, September 2023 and April 2024.

A few highlights from the survey:

• Buyer sentiment rose significantly relative to prior quarters, indicating a rebound in technology spending from buyers across industries.
• Overall budgets are trending upward with 74% this quarter vs. 55% in Q1’24 expecting an increase over the next year. With 59% of those increasing budgets seeking to invest in experimental initiatives and new tech, we see strong opportunities for startups in 2025
• Tech employment is leveling out. ​​The number of organizations looking to slow down or freeze hiring has dropped 19 percentage points from 46% in Q1 2023 to 27% in Q3 2024. Moreover, 42% of respondents expected to increase tech hiring over the next year.
• The AI wave is still building, but the future has been slower than anticipated. Today only 5.5% of identified AI use cases are in production, a sobering reality check on respondents’ Q1’24 projection that 52% of identified use cases would be in production over the next 24 months.
• That said, enthusiasm for, and continued investment in, Generative AI remains high. Our survey reveals some interesting trends on which use cases will deploy next, preferred AI model deployments, and what other tech priorities are emerging downstream in light of more AI production rollouts.

We see a lot of fresh opportunities for early-stage technology startups in these survey findings. Check out the full report here to learn more:

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