NEW YORK, Feb. 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Torii, the leading SaaS management and governance platform, today released its annual SaaS Benchmark Report, revealing that AI is accelerating SaaS sprawl and governance risk at a time when many predict enterprise software is in decline. Based on anonymized application usage, access, and adoption data, the report finds that the average enterprise now runs more than 830 applications, with over 61% operating outside formal IT oversight. Rather than consolidating tools, AI-driven experimentation is expanding the long tail of unmanaged software, deepening identity risk, access sprawl, and security blind spots.

“There’s a growing narrative that AI will replace traditional software,” said Uri Haramati, co-founder and CEO of Torii. “What our data actually shows is the opposite: AI is accelerating software adoption across the enterprise. Employees are bringing in more tools, faster than governance models were ever designed to handle.”

Compared to Torii’s 2025 SaaS Benchmark Report, new data shows that enterprise SaaS sprawl is not slowing down - it’s accelerating. Organizations are running more applications year over year, with a growing share operating outside formal IT oversight. What’s changed is the driver: AI-first tools have moved from experimentation to becoming the dominant source of individual software use. As employees increasingly adopt tools independently of centralized procurement, SaaS environments are expanding faster than governance models can keep up.

AI is fueling a new wave of shadow IT
While shadow IT has long been a known issue, Torii’s data shows that AI-native tools are now among the fastest-growing sources of unmanaged access. More than half of the most widely adopted shadow applications discovered in enterprise environments are AI-first tools, many of which rely on OAuth-based permissions and instant integrations that connect directly to corporate data.

Unlike traditional SaaS adoption, these tools often bypass procurement, security reviews, and identity controls entirely, indicating shadow AI as a higher-velocity, higher-risk evolution of shadow IT.

“AI didn’t create shadow IT, but it dramatically increased its speed and blast radius,” Haramati said. “These tools connect deeply, gain broad access instantly, and often persist long after teams stop using them.”

SaaS sprawl is bigger and more fragmented than most think
Torii’s analysis reveals that application growth is significantly larger and more fragmented than organizations think.

• The average organization runs approximately 830 applications, while the median is 680, highlighting extreme skew at scale.
• Large enterprises average 2,191 applications.
• The average employee interacts with 40 applications.
• 61.3% of all discovered applications qualify as Shadow IT.
• Only 15.5% of applications are formally sanctioned. The remainder exist in intermediate states such as “blocked,” “in review,” or “unknown.”
  
  

SaaS governance breaks down at the individual level
SaaS sprawl is no longer just an organizational metric, but an employee-level reality. With each employee interacting with an average of 40 applications, access management, lifecycle controls, and offboarding processes have become exponentially more complex.

This fragmentation increases risk as employees change roles, adopt new tools, or leave organizations. The result is a SaaS landscape littered with inactive accounts, unused licences, and lingering access.

“Software adoption no longer follows centralized or predictable paths,” said Uri Nativ, co-founder and CPO of Torii. “Our data shows that governance gaps aren’t the result of missing policies, but of speed. Applications, especially AI tools, are being adopted faster than traditional procurement and identity controls were designed to handle. Organizations need governance models built for continuous discovery, not annual reviews.”

Torii’s report methodology subverts traditional benchmarks that rely on contracts or SSO integrations, capturing real-world usage across browser activity, OAuth-connected apps, direct sign-ups, and AI-native tools and providing a more complete picture of enterprise SaaS adoption.

The full 2026 Torii SaaS Benchmark Report is available here, with additional findings on AI adoption, discovery sources, and governance trends across company sizes and industries.

About Torii

Torii empowers IT pros to solve modern SaaS challenges at their source—from SaaS sprawl to wasted spend and inefficient processes. Unlike other tools, IT pros rely on Torii to manage their entire SaaS ecosystem, discovering every app, optimizing SaaS investments, and automating SaaS tasks—all in one place. Our uniquely open platform allows IT to consolidate SaaS systems and tailor Torii to their company’s evolving needs. Now, IT can stay in the driver’s seat while securing their company’s sensitive data and empowering every stakeholder with the insights and actions they need. To learn more about Torii, visit toriihq.com.

Contact:
torii-pr@walkersands.com