What 2,200+ discussions reveal about cybersecurity tech buyer plans for 2026

This report features curated findings from 2,200+ structured discussions with senior cybersecurity buyers, conducted December 2025 through February 2026, benchmarked against 7,200+ discussions from prior studies.

Download the full report to compare category momentum, vendor performance, spend intent, and the buyer reasoning behind each trend.

What did Qualitate’s latest cybersecurity study find?

Three findings define the market heading into 2H ’26.

AI security is the fastest-growing area in cyber. A greater share of organizations are increasing spend on AI security posture management and LLM security than in any other cybersecurity market.

Non-human identity has moved to the center of IAM. Mentions jumped from single digits a year ago to roughly 38% in 1H ’26. Buyers point to agentic AI, expanding SaaS footprints, and API-driven architectures as the drivers.

Consolidation is driving spend cuts. 60% of buyers planning to reduce cybersecurity spend cite vendor consolidation, up 20 points in six months.

Why is AI security spend growing fastest?

AI security markets are seeing the strongest spend momentum across cybersecurity.

Buyers are increasing investment in AI security posture management and LLM security as AI adoption moves from experimentation into production. As agentic workflows expand, security teams are prioritizing controls around model usage, data exposure, identity, and governance.

The full report breaks down where buyers are increasing spend, which categories are gaining budget, and how AI security compares with established cybersecurity markets.

Why are non-human identities becoming a priority?

Non-human identities have shifted from a niche IAM topic to a central buyer concern.

Mentions rose from single digits a year ago to roughly 38% in 1H ’26. Buyers connect the rise to agentic AI, expanding SaaS environments, API-driven architectures, and the growing number of machine credentials operating across enterprise systems.

The full report shows how buyers are discussing non-human identity, what is driving urgency, and how the trend is affecting IAM evaluations.

How is consolidation affecting cybersecurity budgets?

Vendor consolidation is now one of the clearest drivers of spend reduction.

Among buyers planning to cut cybersecurity spend, 60% cite consolidation as the reason, up 20 points in six months. Buyers are looking to reduce overlapping tools, simplify vendor management, and shift budget toward platforms that can cover multiple use cases.

The report details where consolidation pressure is strongest and how it is affecting category-level spend across the cybersecurity stack.

What’s in the full report?

The downloadable deck covers cybersecurity market momentum, category attractiveness, vendor performance, and buyer reasoning behind the numbers:

• Category-level attractiveness scores, six-month deltas, and spend growth across Endpoint, IAM, Cloud Security, DPS, GRC, AppSec, SecOps, and Network Security.
• Breakdowns on CrowdStrike, Akamai, Wiz, and Cyera, including evaluation share, churn rate, and the specific reasons buyers gave for selecting or rejecting each vendor.
• Cost-effectiveness benchmarking across 45 cybersecurity vendors, with industry average alignment sitting below 50%.
• Buyer-level discussion excerpts that explain what is driving spend increases, spend cuts, vendor consolidation, and category-level shifts.

How does Qualitate create its reports?

Qualitate conducts recurring studies across industries, interviewing technology buyers and experts using its AI Moderator about forward-looking purchasing plans.

The platform quantifies those discussions so outputs sit on comparable time series across 10K+ companies and markets. This report is a curated preview of recent cybersecurity studies. Full reports, data, and transcripts live on the Qualitate platform.

What is Qualitate’s AI Moderator?

Qualitate’s AI Moderator is a purpose-built voice agent equipped with 400,000+ minutes of expert discussions.

It conducts structured one-on-one interviews with verified buyers and experts, following a consistent question framework with research-grade probing. That structure enables quantitative analysis of qualitative data.

How is this different from a survey or expert network call?

Traditional surveys capture checkbox responses. Expert network calls provide depth, but with limited interviews per project, they are rarely statistically meaningful.

Qualitate runs 100+ discussions per study using a consistent structure, so the output is both deep and quantifiable.

How current is the data?

Each report covers a specific study period, noted on the report page.

Qualitate runs continuous study cycles, so most markets are refreshed every 90–180 days. Every data point is benchmarked against prior study periods, allowing buyers and investors to track direction of change over time rather than relying only on point-in-time snapshots.

Who are the buyers in these discussions?

The discussions are with verified senior technology buyers, including directors, VPs, and C-suite executives actively managing cybersecurity purchasing decisions at enterprise organizations. Qualitate screens for seniority, active buying authority, and relevance to the specific market being studied. Discussions that do not meet quality thresholds are excluded before analysis.

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