Trends in Serverless Functions

This IDC Perspective examines the trends reshaping serverless functions in 2026 and assesses how seven cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Tencent Cloud, are responding. It argues that functions have evolved from event-driven glue into a primary runtime for AI agents, identifies five defining trends (agentic functions, the end of the cold-start arms race, concurrency-driven economics, container and open-standard convergence, and GPU-backed serverless), and offers a decision framework for technology buyers."Serverless has quietly become the runtime of the agentic era," explains Rob Tiffany, research director, Cloud Infrastructure, IDC. "The buyers who win will match each workload to the right execution model, weigh concurrency economics over sticker price, and protect portability with open standards to navigate their next move with confidence."