For years, Third-Party Maintenance (TPM) was considered a cost-cutting alternative… a way to stretch budgets, delay equipment refresh cycles, and keep legacy hardware running a little longer.
As we enter 2026, the TPM trends go beyond price alone. AI adoption is raising the cost of downtime. Infrastructure sprawl is making traditional support models harder to manage. Vendor consolidation is frustrating customers. Unclear regulations delay sustainability goals. And economic uncertainty is putting more pressure on IT budgets.
As a result, TPM is evolving from a cost decision into a strategic one.
Here are five TPM trends that will define how TPM is evaluated, deployed, and trusted in 2026… and why they matter.
1. AI Is Driving More Predictive Maintenance
AI is no longer a future initiative. By 2026, global AI spending is expected to exceed $300 billion, and those workloads are increasingly part of core business operations.
Even when AI workloads run on newer platforms, they often depend on existing infrastructure — storage systems and networking gear that may already be out of OEM support. A single hardware failure can have a negative effect across analytics, training environments, or real-time inference systems. No one wants downtime.
That’s why TPM is moving beyond break/fix models.
Leading providers are using historical failure data, service patterns, and environmental indicators to anticipate issues before they cause outages. Preventative maintenance, advanced part replacement strategies, and proactive monitoring are becoming standard expectations.
TPM Trend #1: In 2026, predictive maintenance will be a key capability of TPM providers.
2. Consolidation Continues - and Customers Are Feeling the Impact
The TPM market has undergone significant consolidation over the past decade, and the merger trend shows no sign of slowing. After all, larger providers can offer broad geographic coverage, standardized tooling, and aggressive pricing – all real advantages at scale.
BUT, customers are becoming increasingly vocal about the downsides of these mergers. Complaints include:
- One-size-fits-all support models that don’t reflect unique environments
- Rigid SLAs that look strong on paper but break down during real incidents
- High employee turnover in account teams and field engineers, leading to lost context
- Service quality often declines after consolidation. As TPM providers merge, communication between account teams and service delivery becomes fragmented, leading to slower responses, lost context, and a less consistent support experience for customers
In practice, vendor consolidation often introduces customer service nightmares.
As a result, a new class of TPM providers is gaining momentum. These organizations offer global reach and competitive pricing, but with a more relationship-driven operating model. They prioritize continuity of staff, in-depth knowledge, and real ownership of outcomes.
TPM Trend #2: In 2026, customers will increasingly choose providers who can scale AND stay accountable.
3. Multi-Vendor Support Becomes the Default
Very few enterprise environments are still single-vendor. Mergers, cloud migrations, edge deployments, and incremental refresh cycles have created stacks that include multiple OEMs.
Managing separate support contracts for each vendor has become operationally unsustainable. Why? Procurement teams are overwhelmed. IT teams are forced to coordinate across multiple support desks. Accountability becomes blurred when issues span multiple vendors.
TPM solves this problem.
Vendor-agnostic support models make procurement simpler, make it easier to hold providers accountable, and reflect how infrastructure actually exists. Organizations that haven’t consolidated support are increasingly asking a simple question: What problem are we solving by keeping it fragmented?
TPM Trend #3: In 2026, multi-vendor support will be the default expectation.
4. Sustainability and Regulation Increase the Need for Flexibility
Sustainability is trending, and for good reason. The global e-waste problem is growing rapidly, with estimates exceeding 50 million metric tons annually, and data center equipment is a meaningful contributor. When companies extend the life of their hardware, they reduce e-waste, lower their carbon impact, and align with corporate ESG goals.
As AI adoption accelerates, energy demands inside the data center are also increasing, putting additional pressure on sustainability initiatives. AI-driven workloads raise power consumption and cooling requirements, making it harder for some organizations to stay on track with ESG commitments.
At the same time, regulation is adding additional complexity.
The EU has clearly defined sustainability and reporting frameworks, while North America remains more fragmented, but is clearly moving in the same direction. Requirements around documentation, asset disposition, and environmental reporting vary by region and continue to evolve.
TPM allows organizations to extend the life of their hardware where it makes sense, avoid forced refreshes, and adjust their support strategies as regulations become clearer. By extending existing infrastructure, TPM can also help offset some of the environmental impact created by increased AI adoption.
TPM Trend #4: In 2026, TPM will be chosen to help organizations keep strategic options open.
5. Cost Optimization Still Matters, Especially Now
Despite all this evolution, cost still matters.
Inflation, supply chain volatility, and geopolitical risk continue to affect IT planning cycles. At the same time, organizations are investing heavily in AI, cybersecurity, and the digital transformation, often without sufficient budget increases.
TPM continues to offer organizations a clear value proposition:
- Lower annual support costs
- Deferred capital expenditures
- Predictable, stable maintenance models
But the conversation has definitely matured.
The question is no longer “How cheap can support be?”
It’s “How much value can support deliver for the dollars we’re already spending?”
TPM Trend #5: In 2026, it’s about spending intelligently.
Final Thought
Customers want support that fits how their infrastructure actually works. They look for providers that can scale without becoming hard to work with, stay accountable, and offer flexibility without adding risk.
TPM providers that deliver reliable service, take clear ownership, and act as real partners will continue to stand out in the coming year.
