San Jose, Calif. – September 22, 2026 -- Eighty-three percent of organizations now run or plan to run AI workloads, a figure that climbs above 90% among large enterprises, according to The 2026 Open Data Infrastructure Report released by the OpenSearch Software Foundation and Linux Foundation Research.

AI adoption pushes organizations toward vendor-neutral data platforms

The study found that 71% of organizations now treat vendor-independent infrastructure deployment as a strategic priority, while 78% call cross-vendor, cross-tool interoperability critical when evaluating data infrastructure. Total cost of ownership (80%) and security and compliance (79%) rank as the top decision-making factors for IT leaders selecting AI infrastructure platforms.

Generative AI and LLM-powered applications lead data infrastructure use cases at 82%, and 68% of organizations prefer hybrid search — combining keyword and semantic retrieval — to improve AI relevance. Notably, 80% of organizations said they would consolidate to fewer platforms if doing so meaningfully cut costs, and 44% prefer a single core platform paired with specialized tools.

OpenSearch awareness nearly doubles since 2024, driving platform consolidation

Awareness of OpenSearch reached 89% in 2026, up from 68% in 2024, as the five-year-old project expanded beyond search into log analytics, observability and real-time analytics. Search and retrieval remains the top use case at 91%, followed by log analytics and observability at 83% and real-time analytics at 70%.

Seventy-seven percent of organizations now view OpenSearch as a core or supporting component of their AI infrastructure, and 62% of respondents already deploy the technology in AI workloads. Bianca Lewis, executive director of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, said enterprises are shifting to open models to secure cost predictability, data sovereignty and long-term stability amid concerns over proprietary lock-in.

Enterprise users cite compliance and privacy demands behind OpenSearch migration

Terry Quigley, Principal Software Developer at SAS, said the company transitioned to OpenSearch after licensing changes disrupted its prior data platform ecosystem, and now applies the technology across global anti-money laundering, public security and anti-fraud operations. Art Abal, Managing Director at Vana Foundation, said OpenSearch's customizable framework allows organizations handling sensitive, consent-based data to maintain aggregate data layers without violating strict privacy bounds that commercial solutions often breach.