Zylo: 81% of SaaS Spend Now Controlled by Business Units — IT Manages Only 15% — Shadow AI Governance Gap Widens

Zylo·low signal

Zylo's 2026 index reveals a structural governance inversion: business units now directly control 81% of SaaS spend, with IT managing only 15%, as AI tools bypass procurement through expense-based purchasing (up 267% YoY). Without active management, the average 305-app SaaS portfolio would balloon to 409 apps by year end — a 34% ungoverned growth rate. For builders, this signals that the actual buyer for AI-native SaaS tools in 2026 is increasingly the department head with an expense card, not IT — reshaping go-to-market motion from top-down enterprise sales to bottoms-up expense-led adoption.