Customer-service budgets barely grew this year -- the AI share of them jumped 38%
Overall service and support budgets rose just 2%, but AI spending within those budgets surged 38% versus 15% for tech spending broadly, now averaging 13% of total service budgets.
Reporting published September 10, 2026, citing Gartner data, found overall customer-service and support budgets grew just 2% this year, while AI spending within those same budgets surged 38% -- more than double the 15% growth rate for technology spending broadly across service and support functions. AI now averages 13% of total service and support budgets.
Reallocation, not net new spend
A budget that's essentially flat overall, with one line item growing 38% inside it, means something else in that budget is shrinking to make room -- and the reporting frames workforce spend as the likely offset. This is a reallocation story more than a growth story: the total pool of money isn't expanding much, but what it's being spent on is shifting hard toward AI.
Why this pattern is worth watching beyond customer service
Flat overall budgets with AI spend growing several times faster than everything else inside them is a pattern likely to show up in other cost-center budgets beyond customer service as AI tools mature -- for finance leaders modeling AI spend trajectories, this is an early, quantified example of what "AI eating an existing budget line" looks like in practice, rather than AI spend arriving as genuinely incremental money.