Citi Lifts AI Services Revenue Forecasts as Cloud Use Grows

Citi raised its AI services revenue forecasts for 2026 through 2028 as customer use and monetization improve at major cloud providers. The revisions reflect the bank’s estimates, not reported revenue growth rates for the companies.

Citi increased its estimate by 9% for 2026 and 7% for 2027, then made a larger 17% revision for 2028. That final-year change was the biggest of the three. The adjustments point to a stronger outlook for AI services revenue, while remaining forecasts rather than realized results.

Google Cloud had 2,600 customers consume more than 100 billion tokens over the past year, compared with 2,000 in the second quarter. Tokens are small units of text processed by AI models, and the customer count measures usage at that level. Microsoft 365 Copilot customer growth on consumption-based billing exceeded 75% quarter over quarter. Under that billing model, charges are tied to usage rather than a fixed fee for each seat.

Amazon has guided for Amazon Web Services (AWS) growth above 40% in both fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028. In the third quarter of 2026, AWS, Meta, Google and Microsoft together reported 25% year-over-year growth. Revenue growth among the top three cloud providers accelerated to 56% year over year.

Citi also estimates that global artificial intelligence capital expenditures will reach $1.68 trillion in 2027, up 64% from 2026. Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta are expected to account for about 64% of that spending, concentrating a large share of the forecast investment among four companies.

The usage figures offer measures of customer adoption and billing activity, while Citi’s revisions concern future revenue estimates. Google Cloud’s token count and Copilot’s customer growth are not themselves reported revenue growth rates. The spending estimate likewise remains a forecast, with the four named companies expected to make up about two-thirds of global AI capital expenditures in 2027.