83% of organizations run AI workloads, driving demand for interoperable, cost-efficient data platforms

• The OpenSearch Software Foundation and Linux Foundation Research released The 2026 Open Data Infrastructure Report, examining how organizations scale AI implementation while navigating data governance, vendor independence and infrastructure costs.
• Key findings show that 83% of organizations run or plan to run AI workloads, with 71% prioritizing vendor neutral infrastructure.
• Research found 77% of organizations see OpenSearch as core or significant in their AI processes.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The OpenSearch Software Foundation, the neutral home for the OpenSearch Project, today released The 2026 Open Data Infrastructure Report: AI, Governance, and OpenSearch Adoption Trends, created in partnership with Linux Foundation Research. Key findings show that AI workloads, now ubiquitous across global organizations, require a neutral, interoperable, unified data platform to ensure data control, cost efficiency, and operational security. This shift helped drive a nearly 2x increase in OpenSearch adoption as it evolved into a foundational data layer for AI infrastructure.

"This research confirms what we're hearing directly from the community," said Bianca Lewis, executive director of the OpenSearch Software Foundation. "As organizations expand AI efforts, they are worried about the risk of proprietary lock-in, and they need a neutral, open platform they can control. "That's why enterprises are shifting to an open model – enabling cost predictability, data sovereignty, and long-term stability."

AI Workloads Drive Widespread Infrastructure Demand

The adoption of AI is pervasive, and the underlying data platforms that search, index, retrieve, and monitor information have become just as central to success as the models and algorithms themselves. As organizations rapidly scale these systems, recent benchmark data highlights the operational shift required to support full-scale enterprise deployment.

The report found:

• 83% of organizations run or plan to run AI workloads, reaching more than 90% among large enterprises.
• Generative AI and LLM-powered applications are the leading data infrastructure use case (82%).
• Hybrid search – combining keyword and semantic search – is the preferred retrieval approach for 68% of organizations to enable AI relevance.

Infrastructure Adoption Relies on Cost Overhead and Vendor Independence

Research confirms that data infrastructure – the search, analytics, observability, and related platforms and tools organizations rely on to collect, store, manage, process, and extract value from their data – is a strategic priority for leaders. Selecting a data platform to run AI requires a major investment of time and resources, which can impact business success for years to come. Vendor independence, data ownership, interoperability, and cost are critical factors in IT leaders' decision making.

The report found:

• 78% of organizations say cross-vendor, cross-tool interoperability is critical when evaluating data infrastructure, enabling flexibility as the ecosystem evolves.
• 71% of organizations agree that deploying infrastructure independently of a specific vendor or cloud provider is a strategic priority.
• Total cost of ownership (80%) and security and compliance (79%) top the list of needs for a data infrastructure platform.
• 80% of organizations would consolidate to fewer platforms if it meaningfully reduced costs, and 44% prefer one core platform with specialized tools.

Beyond Search: OpenSearch as Core AI Infrastructure

OpenSearch has evolved, and the community is taking notice. At the five-year anniversary of the project, search and retrieval is the number one use case (91%), but research demonstrated the breadth and depth of platform use, with use cases like log analytics and observability reaching 83% and real-time analytics at 70%. The increasing importance of unified observability and search capabilities is driving expanded adoption and awareness of the platform.

The report found:

• OpenSearch awareness jumped to 89% in 2026, up from 68% in 2024.
• 77% of organizations see OpenSearch as a core or supporting component of their AI infrastructure.
• 62% of respondents already use OpenSearch in AI workloads.

OpenSearch provides the infrastructure layer that grounds AI applications in an organization's own data and the observability layer that keeps AI-powered systems running reliably in production.

Explore all findings in The 2026 Open Data Infrastructure Report: AI, Governance, and OpenSearch Adoption Trends here.

Insights from OpenSearch in Production

"Our use of data infrastructure technology dates back over ten years to early versions of our primary data platform. When licensing changes disrupted that ecosystem, we transitioned first to an intermediate distribution and eventually moved directly to OpenSearch. Today, we use the technology very heavily across multiple major areas, including global anti-money laundering, public security, and anti-fraud solutions." – Terry Quigley, Principal Software Developer, SAS

"Handling highly sensitive data under a consent framework requires extreme customizability to maintain strict privacy promises. While commercial solutions often violate those privacy bounds, OpenSearch provides a customizable framework that allows organizations to maintain aggregate data layers while upholding user trust." – Art Abal, Managing Director, Vana Foundation

About Linux Foundation Research
Founded in 2021, Linux Foundation Research explores the growing scale of open source collaboration, providing insight into emerging technology trends, best practices, and the global impact of open source projects. By leveraging project databases and networks and committing to best practices in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, Linux Foundation Research is creating the go-to library for open source insights for the benefit of organizations worldwide.

About the OpenSearch Software Foundation 
The OpenSearch Software Foundation is a vendor-neutral community for search, analytics, observability, and vector database software. Hosted by the Linux Foundation and supported by premier members such as AWS, IBM, SAP and Uber, the OpenSearch Software Foundation works with community maintainers, developers, and member organizations to drive the continued growth of the OpenSearch project. With more than 2 billion software downloads since its inception and participation from thousands of contributors, the OpenSearch project and its community are transforming how information is managed and discovered. To learn more, please visit https://opensearch.org/foundation.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact 
Kristi Piechnik 
The Linux Foundation 
kpiechnik@linuxfoundation.org 

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SOURCE OpenSearch Software Foundation