New Delhi, India, September 6, 2026 — AI-powered coding agents are beginning to alter corporate technology spending, with companies increasingly choosing to build software internally rather than purchase products from vendors, according to a research report by McKinsey.
Nearly one-third (32%) of respondents said their organizations had decided against purchasing at least one software product or feature because they could build the functionality internally using agentic coding tools. The trend was particularly pronounced in technology and health care, followed by professional services and energy and materials.
The shift comes as enterprises rapidly scale agentic AI. Forty percent of respondents at organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue said they were scaling AI agents in at least one function, up from 27% a year earlier. Adoption among smaller organizations, however, remained broadly unchanged at 22%.
AI high performers are moving even faster. They are twice as likely as other organizations to report scaling software coding agents and 2.7 times more likely to scale other agentic AI. Nearly half of high performers said they had forgone software purchases in favor of building internally, compared with 31% of other respondents.
At the same time, the economics of AI are becoming more important. Around one in five organizations said AI-related operating costs, including token costs, had constrained their use of the technology. Yet investment appetite remains strong, with 60% of respondents expecting their organizations to increase AI investment over the next year.
The trend could increasingly force technology companies to rethink the traditional software “buy” model, particularly as coding agents become more capable. McKinsey noted that leading organizations are becoming more deliberate about where to buy, where to build and where to develop internal capabilities.
The report also suggests that AI’s cost structure will become an increasingly important consideration. As agentic systems perform more complex tasks, companies will need to balance the savings from replacing purchased software with the costs of compute, tokens and internal development. (ANI)
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