Citi raises AI services revenue forecasts for 2026-2028

Stronger demand and better monetization at the big cloud providers pushed Citi to lift its estimates, with the biggest bump landing in 2028 Citi Research has raised its AI services revenue forecasts for 2026 through 2028. The bank cited strengthening demand and improving monetization across the major cloud providers. The revisions are not cosmetic. Citi lifted its estimates by 9% for 2026, 7% for 2027, and a hefty 17% for 2028. What changed in Citi’s numbers The upgrade centers on the hyperscalers, the handful of companies that run the world’s largest cloud platforms. That group includes Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Meta. All four have been posting accelerating growth in both revenue and backlog, the pipeline of contracted business not yet booked as sales. Combined, AWS, Meta, Google, and Microsoft reported 25% year-over-year growth in Q3 2026. The top-three cloud providers saw revenue growth accelerate to 56% year over year. The usage data behind the upgrade Two data points stand out in the case for stronger AI monetization. First, Google Cloud now counts 2,600 customers that consumed more than 100 billion tokens over the past year. That figure was 2,000 in Q2...