State of Enterprise IoT 2026: Connected Operations in the AI Era

Description

A comprehensive 124-page report on the current state of enterprise Internet of Things with a focus on edge and industrial AI, including market update, forecasts, latest trends, and more.

Overview of the State of Enterprise IoT 2026 report

The State of Enterprise IoT 2026: Connected operations in the AI era report is a current enterprise IoT market assessment and comprehensive summary of recent market actions, including a number of detailed insights generated by the IoT Analytics team in Q3 and Q4 2025. These insights are based on our continued coverage of leading conferences, fairs and exhibits as well as webinars. IoT Analytics conducts more than 500 individual interviews and discussions per year. This report also includes individual research results derived from different reports and models. The report shows the results of our updated enterprise IoT market model and highlights from other recent reports.

The main purpose of this document is to broaden our readers' knowledge of enterprise IoT and inform them about current trends shaping the market and short- and medium-term developments. All the discussed insights center around IoT-related topics but, in many instances, expand beyond IoT. The report presents a discussion of many current market developments, including the latest market environment and forecasts, regional and vertical focus areas, technology stack (cybersecurity, analytics/AI, platform/cloud, general software, connectivity, and hardware), and a discussion of investment and merger and acquisition (M&A) activities. Insights are substantiated with relevant examples and evidence.

The report includes

Executive summary (Analyst opinion on the autonomous operations era, summary of key findings)
Global macroeconomic environment (Key indicators 2019-2025, 6 key themes to watch including tariffs and demographics)
General IoT business sentiment (Impact of macro themes, industrial automation market view, and deep dive on challenges)
Updated IoT market (IoT device connections forecast to 2035, enterprise IoT spending forecast by technology/segment/region, and vendor market shares)
Industrial IoT trends & developments (GenAI and agentic AI adoption, vendor updates from Siemens/Microsoft/AWS, and upcoming startups like Gridware)
IoT connectivity trends & developments (Adoption of LTE Cat-1 bis/5G RedCap, satellite integration, eSIM/iSIM growth, and vendor updates from Vodafone/China Mobile)
IoT hardware trends & developments (Edge AI in MCUs, US semiconductor investment, RISC-V momentum, and vendor updates from Qualcomm/Infineon)
Other IoT-related trends (Impact of sustainability and cybersecurity regulations (CRA, ESPR) on IoT, and analysis of data center infrastructure spending)
IoT workforce developments (Job opening trends for industrial IoT vendors, rise in AI roles, and recent tech layoffs)
Investments and M&A activity (Global IoT funding trends, new industrial AI unicorns, and deep dive on Qualcomm's edge AI acquisitions)

1. Executive summary

Analyst opinion: Enterprise IoT in the era of AI
Executive summary (4 parts)
Reminder: This report takes a broad definition of enterprise IoT
Key findings from selected IoT Analytics reports

2. Global macroeconomic environment

The macro view: Key indicators
The macro view: Key themes to watch
How macro themes affect industrial enterprise technology markets
IoT sentiment remains elevated, despite fewer mentions in corporate earnings calls
Key signals in the enterprise IoT market right now

3. General IoT business sentiment

Industrial automation market view
Deep dive: Key challenges for IoT device makers (3 parts)
Number of connected IoT devices
Number of intelligent edge AI IoT devices
Number of connected enterprise IoT devices
Global IoT enterprise market forecast

4. Updated IoT market

Global IoT enterprise market forecast by technology
Enterprise IoT tech stack: Definitions
Global IoT enterprise market forecast by segment
Global IoT enterprise market forecast by region
Leading enterprise IoT vendors: Market share 2024
Recent IIoT trends & developments
IIoT Trend 1
IoT Trend 2
IIoT Trend 3 (2 parts)
IIoT Trend 4
IoT analysis 1: IoT platforms evolution in past 10 years (2 parts)
IIoT analysis 2: The largest industrial AI vendors
IIoT analysis 3: Agentic AI vs. AI agents vs. agents

5. Industrial IoT

IIoT vendor update 1: Siemens (3 parts)
IIoT vendor update 2: Advantech (2 parts)
IIoT vendor update 3: ABB
IIoT vendor update 4: Yokogawa (2 parts)
IIoT vendor update 4: AWS (2 parts)
IIoT vendor update 5: Microsoft (2 parts)
Upcoming IIoT company 1: Gridware
Upcoming IIoT company 2: Helsing
Upcoming IIoT company 3: Nanoprecise
Recent IIoT product launch news (4 parts)

6. IoT connectivity

Recent IoT connectivity trends & developments
IoT connectivity trend 1
IoT connectivity trend 2
IoT connectivity trend 3
IoT connectivity trend 4
IoT connectivity analysis 1: Comparing satellite IoT vs other IoT wireless technologies
IoT connectivity vendor update 1: Vodafone
IoT connectivity vendor update 2: China Mobile (2 parts)
Upcoming IoT connectivity company 1: Hubble Network
Upcoming IoT connectivity company 2: Morse Micro
Upcoming IoT connectivity company 3: One Layer
Recent IoT connectivity product launch news

7. IoT hardware

Recent IoT hardware trends & developments
IoT hardware trend 1
IoT hardware trend 2
IoT hardware trend 3
IoT hardware analysis 1: The rise of artificial intelligence (3 parts)
IoT hardware vendor update 1: Qualcomm
IoT hardware vendor update 2: Infineon
Upcoming IoT hardware company 1: Openlight
Upcoming IoT hardware company 2: Axelera AI
Upcoming IoT hardware company 3: Ambiq Micro
Recent IoT hardware product launch news

8. Other IoT

Recent other IoT-related trends & developments
Other IoT-related trend 1
Other IoT-related trend 2
Analysis 1: Regulations that will impact enterprises
Analysis 2: Data center spending distribution across infrastructure
Other vendor update: Palantir

9. IoT workforce developments

Job openings by selected leading industrial IoT vendors
Job opening index in selected categories (US only)
AI job openings as share of all job openings (US only)
The tech job market: Selected recent layoffs

10. Investments and M&A activity

Global funding of IoT companies
Industrial IoT/AI unicorns produced in 2025
Recent IoT-related acquisitions
Deep dive: Qualcomm's recent acquisitions are building an edge AI development platform