In the year 2026, financial investments in AI inference surpassed those of AI training for the very first time. Taking up 55 percent of the $42.3B AI-optimized IaaS market, inference spending reached $23.3B compared to the $19B dedicated to training. While the flow of budgets has clearly shifted, the standards used for making purchasing decisions have largely stayed the same. Read on to discover exactly how this misalignment impacts your expenses.