The AI compute gap: Enterprises are buying infrastructure faster than they can measure what it costs

Across 107 enterprises, AI infrastructure spending is accelerating well ahead of the ability to see or steer its economics. Most organizations run their AI on a familiar base of hyperscalers and model-provider APIs, yet the next dollar is aimed at specialized compute almost none of them use today; a majority intend to switch or add providers within the year, many within a quarter.

Buying decisions turn on integration and total cost of ownership rather than headline token price — which is fortunate, because most enterprises cannot yet see their unit economics clearly: GPUs sit at half utilization or less, and fewer than half rigorously track what their compute actually costs. The result is a compute gap — heavy, fast-moving investment running ahead of the visibility needed to control it.

This wave of VentureBeat Pulse Research examines enterprise AI infrastructure and compute: where organizations are in their deployment journey, what they run AI on today, how satisfied they are, what would make them switch, where they plan to evaluate their investments, and — most revealingly — how well they can measure and control the economics of the compute underneath it all.

The central finding is a compute gap — the distance between how aggressively enterprises are investing in AI infrastructure and how little of its economics they can see. Only about one in five (21%) run AI in production at scale, yet spending intentions are outrunning that maturity: the single largest planned area enterprises plan to evaluate over the next year is AI-specialized clouds (45%), a layer almost none of these enterprises use today.

Meanwhile the compute already in place runs cold — 83% report GPU utilization of 50% or less — and fewer than half (44%) can rigorously track what their AI compute costs. Enterprises are buying more infrastructure faster than they can account for what they already own.

Enterprises are not settled on their infrastructure vendors, either: A clear majority (64%) plan to switch or add an infrastructure provider within twelve months, and 38% within the next quarter — unusually high churn intent for a category this foundational. When they choose, they choose on integration with the existing stack (41%) and total cost of ownership (35%), not on headline price: cost per million tokens is the deciding factor for just 8%.

And the frontier constraint that will shape the next round of decisions — the shift from GPU compute to memory bandwidth as inference scales — is barely on the radar, with roughly one in five enterprises either unaware of it or yet to address it. MethodologyVentureBeat fielded this survey as part of its ongoing Pulse Research series, this survey focused on enterprise AI infrastructure, compute, and inference economics.

Responses are filtered to organizations with more than 100 employees (n=107; the survey’s smallest size band, 1–100 employees, is excluded), drawn from a single Q2 2026 (June) wave. Because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, the report reads cross-sectionally and does not infer month-over-month trends. Several questions were multiple-select, so those shares can sum to more than 100%.

By organization size the sample concentrates in the mid-market: 101–250 employees (36%) and 251–1,000 (27%) lead, with 1,001–5,000 (22%), 5,001–10,000 (8%), and 10,001+ (7%) above them. By role it spans managers (38%), individual contributors (28%), VPs and directors (19%), and the C-suite (13%); on purchasing authority it is buyer-credible, with 45% final decision-makers and another 30% recommenders or influencers for AI solutions.

Technology/Software is the largest industry at 26%, followed by Healthcare/Life Sciences (15%), Financial Services (13%), and Retail/E-commerce (12%). At 107 respondents the sample is large enough to read directionally but should be treated as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement; it is self-selected and is not a probability sample.

It also skews toward the mid-market and toward earlier-stage adopters, so it is best read as the view from organizations actively building out AI infrastructure rather than from the largest hyperscale operators. Finding 1: Ambition outpaces productionOnly one in five run AI in production at scaleWe asked where organizations sit in their AI deployment journey. Most are still building toward production rather than operating at scale.

38%are experimenting — running proofs of concept, not yet in production37%have some workloads in production, but not across the organization21%run AI in production at scale — the mature minority4%are not yet running AI workloads at allThe maturity curve is front-loaded. Three-quarters of enterprises (76%) are either experimenting or running only some workloads in production, and just 21% describe AI in production at scale.