IBM Study Reveals AI Vendor Lock-In as 71% of Firms Can’t Switch — and the Company Is Selling the Escape Route

A fresh study from IBM’s Institute for Business Value has laid bare a worrying dependency gripping the corporate world: seven out of ten executives say they are effectively trapped with their primary artificial intelligence provider. The research, which surveyed hundreds of global decision-makers, found that 71% cannot easily swap out their main AI system, while 68% struggle to meet data sovereignty and residency rules across different regions. For IBM, the findings are both a warning and an opening.

The study draws a clear line between two camps. Companies that have built flexible AI architectures — able to swap data, models and infrastructure at will — suffer fewer AI-related outages and shield a larger portion of their operating profit from disruption. Yet the vast majority remain stuck in rigid setups, their strategic agility hamstrung by vendor lock-in that, the research suggests, is becoming a genuine drag on growth.

IBM has positioned itself as the antidote. At its Think 2026 event, the company unveiled IBM Sovereign Core, a software platform designed to help organizations build sovereign, AI-ready environments with verifiable control. Governments and large corporations are the target market, and the timing is deliberate: as AI deployment scales, compliance risks and dependency fears are escalating in tandem. IBM is betting that its own platform can fill the gap that its study so starkly identifies.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying IBM?

The market’s response to this repositioning has been a mixed bag. After a rough patch that saw the stock slide more than 22% from its 52-week high of just under 293 euros, shares have staged a forceful recovery. Over the past 30 days, IBM equity has surged roughly 22% to a recent close of 233.50 euros. Yet for all that momentum, the year-to-date picture remains negative — down about 6% — and the stock is still nursing a decline of over 8% on a twelve-month horizon. The relative strength index sits at 48.8, signalling neutral momentum after the recent rally.

The strategic shift extends beyond sovereign AI. IBM is leaning heavily into hybrid-cloud infrastructure, with Red Hat OpenShift as the linchpin, enabling seamless data movement between private and public clouds. The long-term roadmap is ambitious: complex multi-agent AI systems by 2028, quantum computing acceleration by 2030. But the near-term results are already showing. In the first quarter of 2026, IBM posted revenue of $15.9 billion, beating analyst expectations. Software revenue rose 8%, while infrastructure sales also climbed sharply. Consulting, though growing more slowly, now carries a generative AI work backlog that accounts for around 30% of total consulting orders — a sign that corporate clients are moving from pilots to production.

With a market capitalisation of roughly 220 billion euros, IBM remains a heavyweight, and analysts see further upside. The average price target stands at about 251 euros, implying a gain of nearly 8% from current levels. The bull case rests on the idea that IBM has carved out a lucrative niche: supplying large enterprises with secure, flexible AI platforms that solve the very lock-in problems its own study highlights. The next test comes with the quarterly earnings release — investors will be watching closely for signs that Sovereign Core and the broader AI push are translating into new contracts, rather than just clever marketing.