New Delhi: Azul’s 2026 State of Java Survey & Report, based on responses from over 2,000 Java professionals worldwide, shows enterprises are increasingly using Java to power artificial intelligence (AI) while accelerating migration away from Oracle Java over pricing concerns.
According to the report, 62 per cent of organisations now use Java to develop AI functionality, up from 50 per cent last year. Additionally, 31 per cent said more than half of the Java applications they build include AI features. Respondents cited long-term support for modern Java versions (35 per cent), built-in security (34 per cent), observability (32 per cent), large data access (30 per cent) and large language model integration (30 per cent) as key priorities for Java’s competitiveness.
At the same time, 92 per cent of respondents expressed concern about Oracle Java pricing. Around 81 per cent have migrated, are migrating, or plan to migrate at least part of their Oracle Java workloads to non-Oracle OpenJDK distributions, while 63 per cent intend to move their entire Java estate. Cost (37 per cent) remains the primary driver, followed by open-source preference (31 per cent), pricing uncertainty (29 per cent) and audit risk (26 per cent). Notably, 21 per cent reported undergoing an Oracle Java audit.
Cloud cost optimisation is another focus area, with 97 per cent taking steps to reduce public cloud spending and 41 per cent adopting high-performance Java platforms. However, 74 per cent reported over 20 per cent unused compute capacity, indicating continued inefficiencies.
