What 2,200+ discussions reveal about cybersecurity tech buyer plans for 2026
This report features curated findings from 2,200+ structured discussions with senior cyber buyers, conducted December 2025 through February 2026, benchmarked against 7,200+ discussions from prior studies.
AI security markets are the fastest-growing in cyber. A greater portion of organizations are increasing spend on AI security posture management and LLM security than in any other cyber market.
Non-human identities have moved from the margins of IAM discussions to the center. 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.
Consolidation is driving spend cuts. 60% of buyers planning to reduce cyber spend cite vendor consolidation, up 20 points in six months.
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 reasoning buyers gave for selecting or rejecting each.
Cost-effectiveness benchmarking across 45 cybersecurity vendors. Industry average alignment sits below 50%.
Qualitate's AI Moderator runs thousands of 1:1 structured discussions with verified technology buyers each month, quantifying the outputs so signals are comparable over time.
This report is a curated preview of our recent cybersecurity studies. Full reports, data, and transcripts live on the Qualitate platform.
Leading enterprises and investment firms trust Qualitate to run their full primary research workflows, from expert recruitment and study design to interview moderation and insight creation.
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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 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 give depth but at limited interviews per project they’re not statistically meaningful. Qualitate runs 100+ discussions per study, structured consistently, 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 so you can track direction of change over time, not just point-in-time snapshots.
Who are the buyers in these discussions?
Verified senior technology buyers - 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 don’t meet quality thresholds are excluded before analysis.
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