Flexera 2026 State of ITAM Report: How teams are regaining control of cloud, SaaS and AI

As organizations scale across SaaS, public cloud and AI, ITAM teams are being asked to do more than track assets: They’re expected to restore visibility, prove value and govern environments that are growing faster than policy can keep up.

Based on a global survey of 512 professionals, Flexera’s 2026 State of ITAM Report shows clear progress. But complexity continues to outpace control.

A quadrant showing key insights from State of Itam Report 2026

Highlights from this year’s State of ITAM report

Read the full report

Below, we break down the key findings through the lens of the questions IT leaders are asking most right now.

The visibility gap across cloud, SaaS and AI

Bar chart comparing visibility across IT environments in 2025 vs. 2026: on‑premises hardware (76% vs. 74%), on‑premises software (75% vs. 78%), cloud instances (63% vs. 74%), SaaS (50% vs. 66%), cloud licenses/BYOL (27% vs. 43%), and AI software (not measured in 2025 vs. 31% in 2026). Visibility is highest on premises and improving most in cloud, SaaS, and BYOL, while AI visibility remains limited.

While visibility improves across cloud and SaaS environments, limited insight into AI highlights a new challenge for ITAM as organizations expand into emerging technologies

Visibility remains the biggest structural gap in modern ITAM.

Only 31% of organizations report visibility into AI software
Complete IT visibility has dropped to 36%, down from 43% in 2025
Tracking or adopting AI applications is now the top combined challenge, cited by 84%

While visibility into on-premises, SaaS and cloud environments continues to improve, AI has created a new blind spot.

At the same time, ITAM’s scope is expanding:

75% manage cloud software licenses
64% manage SaaS licenses
51% support AI spend visibility

Takeaway
Visibility is no longer a tooling problem. It’s a scope problem. As asset types expand, ITAM teams need a single system of record that spans cloud, SaaS and AI.

The growing pressure to prove ROI on AI, cloud and SaaS

Optimization remains the clearest path to proving value. But AI is still catching up.

Optimizing software spend is the number one SAM priority, leading all others by more than 19 percentage points
ITAM teams spend the largest share of SAM time optimizing cloud and SaaS software
Nearly one-third of total ITAM time is dedicated to software optimization

AI introduces a new challenge:

AI tools aren’t yet producing strong savings outcomes
Only 29% of organizations currently measure the value of AI software

Meanwhile, proven ROI drivers still dominate:

License reuse generates significant savings for 43% of organizations
Mature ITAM programs consistently deliver savings through reuse and negotiation

Takeaway
For most organizations, ROI comes from optimization, reuse and governance. AI investments are scaling fast, but value realizationhasn’t kept pace.

Read the full report

Escalating waste and audit exposure across the IT estate

Stacked bar chart showing how wasted spend changed over the past year by category. For AI software, 59% report increased wasted spend, 31% say it stayed the same, and 7% report decreased—the highest increase among all categories. Other increases include public cloud software (44%), SaaS (43%), IaaS/PaaS (41%), data center software (25%), and desktop software (23%).

Wasted spend is rising fastest in AI, with the majority of organizations reporting increased inefficiencies as adoption accelerates

AI adoption is moving faster than governance frameworks can support.

59% of organizations report increased wasted AI spend
Only 31% have visibility into AI software
48% are tracking and rightsizing AI contracts
45% are actively identifying unsanctioned AI usage

The challenge isn’t adoption. It’s an uncontrolled growth.

AI tracking is the top planned responsibility for ITAM teams
More than half of ITAM teams already support AI-related activities

Takeaway
Most organizations are reacting to AI risk instead of preventing it. ITAM is emerging as the control layer that brings structure, accountability and guardrails to AI experimentation.

Donut chart showing estimated organizational spend on software vendor audits over the past three years. The largest segment is $1 million–$2 million (21%), followed by $0–$100,000 (16%), $2 million–$5 million (13%), $501,000–$1 million (10%), $251,000–$500,000 (9%), and $101,000–$250,000 (8%). Smaller shares report $5 million–$10 million (5%), $10 million–$25 million (3%), $25 million–$50 million (1%), and $50 million+ (1%), while 14% don’t know.

Software vendor audits are a significant cost burden, with many organizations spending $1 million or more over three years

Cost pressure and audit exposure remain persistent and expensive.

48% of organizations were audited in the past year
44% spent more than $1,000,000 on audits over the past three years
64% of audited organizations reported Microsoft audits

Takeaway
Audit risk and waste aren’t disappearing. They’re evolving alongside AI and SaaS complexity. Organizations that improve visibility and licence control stand to unlock the greatest financial gains.

Why SaaS management is harder than expecte

SaaS sprawl, cost pressure and fragmented ownership continue to create challenges.

Tracking SaaS and public cloud software keeps rising as a core ITAM responsibility
SaaS wasted spend continues to increase year over year
Negotiating SaaS contract terms jumped 14 percentage points compared to 2025

The root causes are clear:

A growing number of applications
Decentralized procurement
Increasingly complex software use rights

Not surprisingly, 78% of ITAM teams say maintaining an accurate inventory is their top priority.

Horizontal bar chart showing SAM-focused responsibilities handled by ITAM teams. The top responsibility is maintaining an accurate inventory of licensed software at 78%, followed by responding to audits (76%) and software discovery (75%). Other responsibilities include license tracking, SaaS usage, optimization, and AI tracking at lower levels. A secondary column shows planned increases in focus, with AI tracking (47%) ranked highest for future investment.

Maintaining an accurate software inventory is the top ITAM responsibility, with 78% of teams actively managing it—underscoring its critical role as the foundation for effective SAM

Takeaway
SaaS is difficult to manage because it’s fast-moving, fragmented and hard to normalize. Without strong inventory, discipline and governance, sprawl becomes unavoidable.

The bigger shift: ITAM is evolving from SAM and HAM

Across every trend, one theme stands out. ITAM is becoming a strategic control layer for cloud, SaaS and AI.

78% of organizations now have a FinOps team, and ITAM and FinOps responsibilities increasingly overlap
Ownership of cloud optimization is nearly split between ITAM and FinOps

This convergence reflects a new operating model:

ITAM owns visibility and governance
FinOps owns financial accountability
Together, they define how organizations can control technology spend at scale

Final takeaway

The findings in the report show real progress, but it also makes one thing clear: AI and SaaS expansion are moving faster than most organizations can govern. To do this, leading teams are focusing on three priorities: