Paris, Munich, London, 19 February 2026: Market research and strategic consulting firm PAC has released its PAC RADAR series on “Leaders in AI-related Services 2026 – Europe, France, Germany, and the UK”, designed to help AI clients and prospects identify the right services partner for their business.
PAC has evaluated leading AI-related service providers in Europe and in local markets in France, Germany, and the UK. This series of RADAR reports and graphics analyses more than 30 providers ranging from global market leaders to specialized local experts. The assessment covers overall AI-related services capabilities in Europe, France, Germany, and the UK, as well as Agentic AI and Sovereign AI-related services, AI-related services for five business functions, and AI-related services in four vertical sectors, at European level. The assessment also covered two crossed categories, Sovereign AI-related services in France and AI-related services for the German Mittelstand.
The AI-related Services Market Continues Its Rapid Growth Trajectory
Even though AI is not a new concept, PAC has witnessed phenomenal interest in AI-based tools and services in recent years. The meteoric rise of generative AI in 2024 and Agentic AI in 2025 have disrupted the IT market and reshaped the approach to digital transformation.
How did the ecosystem react?
While giants like Amazon and Google are announcing huge investments in AI, and even a European AI LLM provider such as Mistral AI is investing record amounts in datacenter infrastructure in early 2026, also global, European, and local IT services providers are prepared to support their customers with AI adoption.
“They are investing a lot in IP assets such as frameworks, tools, prompt and agent libraries, and in R&D, but also in their workforce (training and certification) and in M&As..”, says Valérie Delage, Advisory Manager at PAC and Co-Lead Analyst for this PAC RADAR.
Accenture for example has been assessed ‘best in class’ in most categories of this PAC RADAR among other things thanks to its important investments in IP assets, R&D, numerous partnerships with universities, training, competence centers, and M&A related to AI.
This market upheaval has also sparked discussions about accountability, ethics, and legal frameworks that guide the development of AI. Concepts like eXplainable AI (XAI), Responsible AI (RAI), and Sovereign AI have started to be incorporated into vendor offerings and guidelines for the reliable use of AI.
“Sovereign AI in particular saw significant development in 2025, both at country and European levels.”, says Karsten Leclerque, Principal Analyst at PAC and Co-Lead Analyst for this PAC RADAR.
CGI, for example, has established itself as a ‘best-in-class’ provider for Sovereign AI services in Europe by leveraging a deep local footprint and advanced sovereign cloud capabilities. On the other hand, JEMS, a pure player in Data & AI emerges as an ‘excellent’ provider for Sovereign AI services in France thanks to its ability to deploy AI Agent / complex AI services on sovereign infrastructures for the finance and public sectors, amongst all other industries in France.
Local players can also make their mark in categories such as AI-related services for the German Mittelstand where Materna stands out as ‘best-in-class’ provider, scoring particularly well with sovereign AI approaches and expertise in the public sector.
While many vendors focus on AI-related consulting and systems integration services, T-Systems stands out as a ‘best-in-class’ vendor with a true end-to-end portfolio; services range from sovereign operations services, incl. massive GPUaaS via the recently launched Industrial AI Cloud, to deep project expertise in sectors like manufacturing and the public sector.
What does this mean for client organizations?
Whilst IT service providers have made great strides in establishing AI service lines to meet modern demands and opportunities, for many of their clients the transition from Proof-of-Concepts (PoC) to production is still not occurring at broad scale. The main AI use cases are still AI-powered everyday professional tools, chatbots, or content and image generation tools. The other significant use case is to further enhance existing automation applied to business workflows and operating models.
Furthermore, providers and clients are aware that productivity gains from AI are not necessarily obvious to make and will certainly not concern all their business processes currently. Nevertheless, IT services providers and client organizations are starting to think bigger. The latter are approaching this opportunity from the lens of business transformation at the scale of the organization but often starting with specific processes.
“On the other hand, IT services providers, previously with a lesser business consulting focus, are announcing the development of business advisory activities, because transformation through AI is not an IT subject, but a business subject first.”, says Spencer Izard, Principal Analyst at PAC and Co-Lead Analyst for this PAC RADAR.
The new PAC RADAR series
The PAC RADAR is an effective tool for the holistic evaluation and visual positioning of software vendors and IT service providers on local markets. With the help of predefined criteria, PAC evaluates and compares providers’ strategies, development, and market position, in addition to their performance and competencies within specific market segments. Each PAC RADAR focuses on a specific IT market segment, either geographic, technologic (Agentic AI and Sovereign AI), business function-oriented (Back-Office Workflows, Digital Customer Engagement, ICT, SCM, and HCM), vertical sector-focused (Manufacturing, Financial Services, Retail & Wholesale, and Public Sector), or specific, such as Sovereign AI-related services in France and AI-related services for the German Mittelstand.
The PAC RADAR is supplemented by a dynamic tool that allows user companies to weight all evaluated criteria in line with their specific preferences. For instance, the long list of providers this tool compiles for a medium-sized manufacturer seeking a services partner to implement AI for Supply Chain Management in Germany may differ significantly from the list generated for a French global corporation operating in several vertical sectors looking for a provider to integrate AI in numerous business processes at global or European level.
For more information about the PAC RADAR series go to “Leaders in AI-related Services 2026 – Europe, France, Germany, UK”.
