Morgan Stanley’s Q2 CIO survey points to rising IT budget expectations and a surge in Microsoft and security spending

Morgan Stanley’s latest CIO survey, conducted in the second quarter of 2026, indicates that chief information officers expect modestly higher growth in their IT budgets heading into the year. According to the reported results, the IT budget growth expectation rose quarter over quarter to 3.8% for 2026, a announcement that more companies are planning incremental spending rather than holding budgets flat.

The survey findings also name specific vendors and software categories that CIOs appear to view as standing out. In the reported takeaways, Microsoft is described as an emerging leader in what CIOs expect to spend on, suggesting that cloud, productivity, and related enterprise software demand remains on the short list for buyers. The survey also highlights the security software category as an area gaining attention, aligning with a broader industry narrative that security remains a top priority even as overall IT spending stays measured.

While the reported results do not provide a full list of categories or quantify how much more respondents plan to allocate to each area, they point to a clear theme: budget growth is not only about expanding technology footprints, but also about reinforcing how firms protect systems and data. For CIOs, security software can encompass a wide range of tools, including platforms for threat detection, identity and access controls, and security analytics, all of which tend to expand as cloud adoption and regulatory obligations increase.

Morgan Stanley typically uses CIO surveys as a barometer of enterprise technology demand, aiming to capture where IT leaders expect spending to move over the near term. In this cycle, the reported increase in budget growth expectations, combined with the vendor and category emphasis on Microsoft and security software, suggests that CIO optimism is filtering through to tangible planning rather than remaining confined to strategy discussions.

For the technology sector, these indicates matter because enterprise spend often influences how software and infrastructure companies pace revenue growth, hiring, and product roadmap decisions. When CIO surveys show IT budgets edging higher, market participants generally interpret that as a tailwind for software vendors tied to enterprise adoption, and a stronger platform for subscription and upgrade cycles.

Still, there are limits to what can be concluded from the reported summary alone. The information made available in the publication does not detail the survey sample size, the full question set, the distribution of responses across industries and company sizes, or whether the 3.8% figure reflects median expectations or a different statistical measure. It also does not specify whether Microsoft and security software were identified as winners because of new deployments, renewals, price changes, or incremental security initiatives.