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Gartner® Maps the Operational Technology Investments Worth Funding in 2026
Operational technology used to be mechanical. It is now software, and the CIOs accountable for it are being asked to modernize plants, grids, and fleets while defending every dollar of that modernization to a board. The 2026 Gartner Hype Cycle™ for Managing Operational Technology sorts more than twenty innovations into what is ready for production today, what is still forming, and what will take five to ten years to mature.
Alembic is one of the Sample Vendors Gartner lists for Intelligent Simulation. Gartner ties the category's momentum to rising scrutiny of AI investment and a growing demand for solutions that deliver verifiable, quantified value: a standard Alembic was built to meet with patented causal algorithms that show which investments produced growth, which consumed capital without returning it, and what happens to the business when money moves between them.
Avoid foundational projects that lack a business objective, as they will waste resources with no potential to grow into intelligent simulation implementations.
Gartner
Hype Cycle for Managing Operational Technology, 2026
Get your complimentary copy of the 2026 Gartner Hype Cycle for Managing Operational Technology.
Inside the report
- The three clusters Gartner tracks across the curve, from innovations just past the Innovation Trigger to the group Gartner considers ready for production in even the most risk-averse organizations
- Where Intelligent Simulation sits, its benefit rating, market penetration, and projected time to mainstream adoption
- What Gartner identifies as driving adoption, including increased scrutiny of AI investment and the demand for verifiable, quantified value
- The Priority Matrix, including the innovations Gartner puts less than two years from mainstream adoption and the technologies CIOs should be assessing five to ten years out
- The obstacles Gartner identifies for organizations pursuing intelligent simulation, starting with the failure to define a clear business objective before funding begins
- And more
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark and HYPE CYCLE is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Managing Operational Technology, 2026, Kristian Steenstrup, Jo-Ann Clynch, 12 June 2026.
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