UK companies are shifting from broad cost-cutting to strategic investments in travel and AI tools
C-suite leaders are starting to move differently, less slash-and-burn budget thinking, more purposeful allocation. What we’re seeing now from UK firms is a marked return to intentional investment, especially in capabilities that drive real productivity: namely, artificial intelligence and business travel.
Instead of cutting across every line item, executives are clearly prioritizing. Advertising, often seen as difficult to measure in terms of ROI, is heading to the chopping block. Meanwhile, budget is flowing into areas where impact is direct and trackable. AI is improving output per person. Travel is enabling customers and stakeholders to get face time again. These are developments that improve the commercial engine of a company.
It’s not just gut feeling, it’s based on hard decisions to modernize. This move shows real alignment with competitive readiness. Technology and in-person interactions now matter more than mass-market exposure. If you want to build a company that grows through deep engagement and operational efficiency, this is the playbook.
Soldo’s 2026 Spending Trends Index sums it up clearly: UK business spending on travel and entertainment rose 12% year-on-year in 2025. And AI wasn’t left behind, budgets held strong, even under discretionary pressure. Sacha Herrmann, CFO at Soldo, was right when he said companies are investing in modernizing operations and building digital agility. That’s exactly what this spend pattern tells us.
This change isn’t just temporary, it’s a wider signal of how smart businesses are thinking ahead.
Business travel spending has rebounded significantly in 2025, with larger firms leading the growth
Big companies are getting back on planes and into rooms. The reason is straightforward: some deals, conversations, and decisions can’t happen as effectively over a screen. That truth is starting to show in spending data.
Business travel in the UK rose 12% in 2025. But the standout is this: large organizations pushed that higher with a 17% increase in travel and entertainment spending. Smaller firms? Up just 8%. That split shows a difference in strategy. Large companies are pushing to engage partners and customers more directly. They’re putting money behind meetings that actually move the needle.
This isn’t nostalgia for business trips. It’s function over form. Executives in larger firms know that in-person negotiations, client onboarding, and strategic partnerships thrive outside Zoom environments. There’s flexibility in their budget structure, and they’re using it to redeploy spend into formats that create solid value.
Leaders should note this: the shift in travel budgets suggests that in a competitive climate, real human connection wins deals. If your company has the size or capital to make those meetings happen, it’s a strategic edge. Travel now is not a cost, it’s part of delivery.
For executives managing tighter margins, this direction highlights something important: travel shouldn’t disappear, it should be targeted. Losing it completely might mean losing key revenue opportunities or slowing relationship-driven sales cycles.
Travel budgets are no longer seen as excess. They’re extensions of the sales and partnership pipeline. And that will only become more evident heading into 2026.
There is a surge in targeted spending on specialized AI tools
What we’re seeing across UK and European businesses right now is a very deliberate technology shift, away from broad, general-purpose AI towards specialized tools that get specific work done. These are systems that write code, structure workflows, and simplify repeatable tasks. The focus is on output, not hype.
Businesses aren’t just experimenting, they’re integrating. The data shows it clearly. Spending on Cursor, an AI-native coding platform, is up 994%. Anthropic, known for its advanced AI language models used in operational environments, saw a 489% budget increase across Soldo’s customer base. That kind of jump doesn’t happen unless companies see real usage and value.
And here’s the nuance: This isn’t the same as investing in “AI” as a flashy add-on. Executives are choosing highly specialized systems that fit into real roles, developer tools, internal process automation, and team productivity boosters. The shift reflects operational intelligence, not trend-chasing. It tells us that leaders are becoming much more disciplined about where AI fits and how it contributes to business goals.
If you’re in the boardroom looking at your tech stack, the question isn’t whether to invest in AI. It’s which AI creates momentum for your teams to move faster and smarter. Tools that are purpose-built, and have real integration paths with your workflows, should get the green light now.
General-purpose AI will still have its place, but the growth is happening in precision tools. These aren’t sandbox experiments anymore. They’re active components of next-gen enterprise operations. And the spending makes that clear.
Advertising budgets have been significantly reduced amid shifting investment priorities
Advertising is taking a hit. A big one. UK companies slashed ad spend by 28% in 2025. That’s not an incremental trim, that’s a full reset. Media buys, paid marketing, and research budgets are standing still or shrinking, largely because leadership is redirecting dollars toward areas where the performance is more measurable in day-to-day operations.
These cuts are more than just cost-saving. They signal a shift in bet. Many companies are choosing tools and activities that drive internal efficiency and direct engagement, like travel or automation, over brand-building efforts that take longer to show results. There’s increasing skepticism on the long-term impact of traditional advertising when budgets are under review.
That puts pressure on marketing executives. Now, more than ever, they need to connect spending to revenue or core operational impact. There’s little tolerance for vague attribution models. If a marketing line item doesn’t tie back to pipeline generation or fast conversion, it’ll be questioned.
This doesn’t mean brand strategy is no longer important, it means it has to compete harder for its share of attention and funding. The index data shows what’s winning. And it’s clear: productivity platforms and in-person commercial interactions are higher on the list right now.
If you’re running a company, ask this: Does your marketing spend behave like a growth engine or a legacy cost? If it’s not fueling outcomes in a provable way, your CFO will find better uses for that capital.
Day-to-day operational spending is on the rise, indicating increased decentralization of purchase decisions
Small, recurring expenses are adding up, and fast. In 2025, UK companies increased their spend on day-to-day operations by 16%. Food, transport, services, and similar low-ticket items now make up 63% of all transactions. That shift says a lot about how businesses are run today.
More teams are being trusted to make their own purchases to keep workflows moving. Procurement is no longer centralized, and it doesn’t need to be, not when team leads and department heads are operating with execution-level autonomy. The trade-off is system complexity. Thousands of small transactions create friction for finance teams trying to track, approve, and audit spend in real time.
This distributed model suggests organizations now prioritize agility and access over strict procurement controls. But speed always comes at a cost if it’s unmanaged. When operational buying expands across the organization chart, visibility becomes non-negotiable.
For C-suite leaders, this decentralization isn’t a red flag. It’s a sign that people are solving problems immediately with the resources they need. What matters now is equipping those same teams with proper tools to maintain compliance automatically, so that decentralization drives speed without sacrificing discipline.
Finance functions can no longer rely on quarterly reporting to understand operational health. Spend has to be visible across tools, departments, and systems today, not three months from now. That’s the standard being set by the data coming out of this report.
The decentralization of spending necessitates enhanced financial controls and reporting systems
More teams spending more frequently means finance infrastructure needs a serious upgrade. Traditional controls aren’t designed for this level of velocity. When every department has the power to commit funds, approval workflows and policy enforcement have to scale, without slowing things down.
What’s happening now is companies are navigating this decentralization with one eye on flexibility and the other on control. The ones that get it right will build systems that handle real-time approvals, instant categorization, and seamless compliance, without creating extra steps for the people spending the money.
This is a leadership decision. Either finance becomes a strategic enabler of fast, decentralized execution, or it stays reactive and introduces process bottlenecks. The market is rewarding the former.
As Sacha Herrmann, Chief Financial Officer at Soldo, explained, the ability to maintain visibility and control at speed is becoming a critical business advantage. And he’s right. The volume of these operational purchases isn’t just high, it’s constant. The only scalable solution is to pair that pace with intelligent systems that can match it.
Tech infrastructure around spend management has to evolve, or financial oversight loses its grip. Decision-makers need to understand this isn’t optional. When decentralization becomes a structural aspect of the business, control systems must be real-time, not retroactive.
Key highlights
- Strategic spend shift: UK businesses are moving away from blanket cost-cutting and instead funding targeted areas like AI and travel that directly support productivity and commercial impact.
- Business travel rebound: Large firms are leading a 17% increase in travel spend to enable in-person customer engagement, signaling its renewed role in revenue-driving activities.
- AI investment focus: Leaders are backing specialized AI tools over general platforms, with spending on platforms like Cursor up 994%—pointing to a strong push for automation and tech-driven efficiency.
- Marketing budget cuts: Advertising saw a 28% spending drop as companies shift budget toward tools and processes with clearer operational ROI, highlighting the need for marketing to prove direct business value.
- Decentralized operations: Everyday purchases now account for 63% of transactions, driven by frontline teams, calling for systems that support fast, compliant team-level spending.
- Control at scale: Finance leaders must modernize internal controls to maintain visibility as decentralized spending grows; real-time approval systems and automated compliance tools are now essential.
