Global IT Budgets Under Pressure: Macro Uncertainty, AI Momentum, and the Rise of Digital Sovereignty

On April 2, President Trump officially declared “Liberation Day,” triggering a renewed wave of tariffs and escalating trade tensions. While software and IT services may not be directly subject to tariffs, they are deeply intertwined with the broader economy. In an environment where the real economy faces rising pressure and volatility, we believe it’s critical to examine how software spending patterns may evolve in response.

Due to the short turnaround time, our primary research was somewhat limited. To compensate, we’ve supplemented our findings with a broad review of recent sell-side reports and channel checks, aiming to piece together a comprehensive view of the current landscape and the early signals emerging from enterprise IT buyers.

We believe this report is very important ahead of the upcoming SaaS earnings season.

The content of this report is very solid, covering various IT budget areas. Additionally, through our interviews, we uncovered several previously unmentioned phenomena such as increasing headlines on European companies looking for domestic vendors to replace US counterparties.

"Some 30% of European customers are considering switching to local vendors such as SAP, at least for their European operations," said the Global Partner.

Evolving IT Spending Estimations