Cloud Waste Hits 29% as AI Spend Ends 5-Year Drop (2026)
Cloud Computing Cloud Waste Hits 29% as AI Spend Ends 5-Year Drop [2026] Marcus Bell Updated Sep 16, 2026 · 15 min read For five straight years, the share of cloud spending that companies simply threw away had been shrinking. Flexera’s 2026 State of the Cloud report, its 15th annual edition, puts estimated wasted spend on infrastructure and platform services at 29% this year, up two points from 27% in 2025. Seventeen percent of organizations blew through their public cloud budget in the past year.
- ▪Cloud Computing Cloud Waste Hits 29% as AI Spend Ends 5-Year Drop [2026] Marcus Bell Updated Sep 16, 2026 · 15 min read For five straight years, the share of cloud spending that companies simply threw away had been shrinking.
- ▪Flexera’s 2026 State of the Cloud report, its 15th annual edition, puts estimated wasted spend on infrastructure and platform services at 29% this year, up two points from 27% in 2025.
- ▪Seventeen percent of organizations blew through their public cloud budget in the past year.
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| Original publisher | shattered.io |
| Canonical URL | https://shattered.io/cloud-waste-29-percent-ai-spending-2026/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 04 Oct 2026 16:24:32 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-04T16:39:55.499Z |
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Cloud Computing Cloud Waste Hits 29% as AI Spend Ends 5-Year Drop [2026] Marcus Bell Updated Sep 16, 2026 · 15 min read For five straight years, the share of cloud spending that companies simply threw away had been shrinking. That streak just broke. Flexera’s 2026 State of the Cloud report, its 15th annual edition, puts estimated wasted spend on infrastructure and platform services at 29% this year, up two points from 27% in 2025. It is the first increase since Flexera started tracking the trend down, and the survey’s own data points to a single culprit: AI workloads that bill in bursts nobody budgeted for.Table of ContentsCloud Waste Jumps to 29%, Ending a Five-Year DeclineInside Flexera’s 753-Respondent Global SurveyWhy AI Workloads Are Breaking the Old Cost PlaybookUnpredictable…
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