For the fifth consecutive year, Avnet, Inc. will release its Avnet Insights survey, tracking how engineers have responded to market dynamics since 2021. Early results from the upcoming 2026 survey show faster adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in product design, along with ongoing integration challenges.
Globally, 56% of engineers said they are shipping products and solutions that incorporate AI, up from 42% last year. Among the most adopted embedded AI applications, engineers cited process automation (42%), predictive maintenance (28%), and fault/anomaly detection (28%). Multi-modal approaches are also increasing: 57% of respondents said they are prioritizing Edge AI and ML equally to deliver greater functionality and value.
Engineers expect obstacles as AI use grows. Data quality was identified as a top design challenge by 46% of respondents, while 54% cited continuous learning and maintenance as the leading operational challenge. For technical questions, engineers reported using LLM tools such as ChatGPT (69%), Google Gemini (57%), and Microsoft Copilot (50%), while showing interest in models trained specifically for engineering use cases.
The full 2026 Avnet Insights survey will be released in January 2026. The survey was conducted online with 1,200 global respondents from October 21 through November 5, 2025, spanning the Americas, EMEA, Asia, and Japan.
