Mexican companies will direct US$776 million to AI software and services and US$1.48 billion to cybersecurity in 2026, as IDC and Select data show technology budgets shifting from hardware toward cloud-based, automation-driven models. However, the country faces a shortage of 77,000 cybersecurity specialists, low security automation, and persistent connectivity gaps, limiting how effectively financial services, retail, and other sectors can convert rising AI and security investment into operational resilience.
Mexican companies plan to direct US$776 million toward AI software and services and US$1.48 billion toward cybersecurity during 2026, according to the consultancy IDC. The figures place both categories among the fastest-growing segments of the country’s technology market, even as a shortage of specialized talent and uneven connectivity limit how broadly companies can put the new tools to use.
“The most advanced generative AI use cases are related to IT, and specifically to security,” says Claudia Medina, Research Director, IDC, during a presentation organized by Check Point Software. Medina explains that these applications already concentrate some of the highest adoption levels and allow companies to document measurable results in threat detection and automated response, a pattern IDC also observes across the wider Mexican corporate market as the two technologies increasingly reinforce one another.
Cybersecurity holds the top position on the Mexican technology agenda, cited by 37% of companies surveyed, while generative AI climbed to second place with 30.8%, up from one of the lowest rankings in 2024, according to IDC’s Latin America IT Investment Trends 2026 survey, which gathered responses from 507 organizations across the region. Worldwide, 30% of organizations consider AI and automation projects protected from a budget cut over the next 12 months, and 25.5% would preserve spending on security, risk management, and compliance, a pattern that also holds across Latin America.
The trend aligns with a separate survey from the consultancy Select, in which AI agents and cybersecurity tied for the top investment priority among Mexican companies. “ICT services and the cloud represent 44% of the market and contribute more than 92% to growth. The growth of the organizational market is being driven by operating expenses and the cloud, rather than the direct purchase of equipment,” says Ricardo Zermeño, General Director, Select. The firm projects Mexican corporate spending on information and communication technologies will reach MX$547 billion (US$31.8 billion) during 2026, up 4.1% year over year, with public cloud infrastructure as the most dynamic component.
The shift reflects the size and pace of Mexico’s broader technology market. IDC estimates the Latin American information and communication technology market at US$291 billion in 2025, expanding at a compound annual rate of 5.9% through 2029. Mexico accounts for US$61.6 billion, or 21.2% of the regional total, ranking second after Brazil. Within that figure, AI software and services stand out for their growth rate: the US$776 million Mexican companies will spend in 2026 represents a 52% annual increase, with financial services and retail among the leading buyers. Cybersecurity spending, covering products and services tied to infrastructure protection, will grow 24% annually to reach US$1.48 billion, aided by AI-based tools that scan large volumes of digital activity and generate alerts with less human intervention.
The urgency behind that spending is measurable. Phishing accounts for 31% of security incidents identified in Latin America, browser-based attacks represent 21%, and supply chain attacks reach 16%, according to a separate IDC survey of 205 organizations. Ninety percent of companies consulted reported malware attacks, and 57% reported damages exceeding US$10,000 from incidents during 2024. Breach costs continue to climb: incidents investigated by IBM in Latin America between March 2025 and February 2026 averaged 82 million pesos and took 328 days to identify and contain, based on an analysis of 28 organizations. That escalating cost helps explain why, as IDC’s Alejandro Florean, vice president of consulting for Latin America, has noted, security interruptions have moved from a technical risk to a decisive factor in business profitability.
Structural gaps still constrain adoption. Mexico needs approximately 83,000 cybersecurity specialists and has around 6,000 available, a shortfall of 77,000 professionals, according to research from IQSEC and Select. Only 38% of Mexican organizations use automation in their security platforms, even though 56% have adopted zero-trust architectures for 2026. Meanwhile, 75% of microenterprises remain without internet access, widening the divide between companies able to finance AI and security projects and smaller businesses still working to get online. Internal culture, cited by 38% of the 82 companies IDC surveyed, ranks as the leading obstacle to digitalization, ahead of a lack of qualified technical staff and cybersecurity threats. As AI adoption expands the volume of data and access points companies must defend, closing that talent and infrastructure gap will determine how much of the projected spending translates into operational resilience.
