IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Enabling Integration Architecture, Worldwide, 2026

This IDC MaturityScape Benchmark assesses the current state of AI-enabling integration architecture maturity in 2026. The findings show most enterprises remain in early to mid-level maturity stages, constrained by fragmented integration environments, uneven skills, and weak governance. In January 2026, we fielded a global IDC MaturityScape Benchmark Survey to 358 IT managers and leaders to determine where organizations are on their path to implementing AI-enabled integration architecture. Within this, we considered three dimensions - strategy, people, and technology - each with supporting sub-dimensions. Our key finding is that very few organizations (just 7.8%) have reached a fully optimized agentic automation architecture stage. The largest group of organizations is at the "point-to-point" second stage of maturity (36.6%), and 13.8% are at the lowest stage of maturity (disconnected).Within our analysis, we looked at the difference between "thrivers" (those that are benchmarked at levels 4 or 5 on our maturity scale) and "survivors" (those that are benchmarked at levels 1-3). We find that thrivers focus on the strategy and technology dimensions of maturity first, then invest in people and skills marginally later in their journeys. "Against the backdrop of several years of integration platform technology innovation specifically directed at supporting AI initiatives, this new IDC MaturityScape research clearly shows that most organizations worldwide have a lot of work to do to capitalize on the innovation available," says Shari Lava, GVP, AI, Data and Automation Research, IDC. "Most organizations still need to evolve beyond architectures that merely support AI and instead build integration environments that actively enable it. To really thrive in the use of these new capabilities, organizations must develop maturity in lockstep across three critical dimensions: strategy, people, and technology."