62% of enterprises now use Java to power AI apps

According to a new report released today, an increasing number of enterprises are using Java as a foundational language for AI development.

Java platform provider Azul’s 2026 State of Java Survey & Report shows that 62% of organizations polled now use Java to code AI functionality — up from 50% last year.

Java for scale

This reflects a shift toward integrating machine learning models with existing Java applications. Moreover, as enterprises move AI from experimentation to production, Java is becoming indispensable for scaling AI workloads, Gil Tene, co-founder and CTO of Azul, says.

“People are not playing around making little demos; they’re making real applications with Java for AI,” Tene tells The New Stack.

An FAQ to the Azul report says: “While other popular languages like Python are often used for rapid prototyping and model building, enterprises rely on Java to run AI in production due to its proven scalability, stability, security, and performance in production environments.”

Meanwhile, Tene notes that many major AI libraries and frameworks now offer mature Java integrations, which lowers the barrier for enterprise teams to adopt AI without switching languages or retraining staff.

In addition, 31% of respondents say more than half of the Java applications they build now contain AI functionality, supported by a mature ecosystem of Java-friendly AI libraries such as Java-ML (45%), Deep Java Library (33%), OpenCL (25%), Spring AI (23%), and PyTorch (20%), among others.

Remaining competitive

The top capabilities survey participants say will be important for Java to remain competitive in an AI-enabled development landscape include long-term support for modern Java versions (35%), built-in security features (34%), observability insights (32%), support for large data access (30%), and integration with large language models (30%), Azul says in its report.

Java vs. Python

As a dominant language in the enterprise space, Java also supports the large, continuously running systems that AI requires. Moreover, Java plays a pivotal role in running AI-enhanced services in production and in integrating machine learning models into enterprise workflows, regardless of whether the models were built in Java or Python.

Indeed, the Azul report shows that Python, which is “synonymous” with AI development, is the third most used language for implementing AI functionality among respondents, with Java first and JavaScript second, Tene says.

“Python and AI are synonymous in prototyping and the slow, simple phases. But when it comes to functionality, Java dominates back-end applications,” he says.

However, Tene acknowledges that because this survey was fielded exclusively to Java users, the results naturally skew toward Java-centric development patterns, particularly in AI adoption.

“…while Python might never relinquish its position as the top programming language for producing AI functionality, Java is becoming the default language for running the AI applications themselves,” the Azul report says.

The report also shows that all respondents use AI code-generation tools, with 30% reporting that more than half of their code is generated entirely by AI.

Trends

Meanwhile, the Azul 2026 State of Java Survey & Report found that 41% of enterprises use high-performance Java platforms to lower cloud spend, Tene says. High-performance Java platforms such as the Azul Platform Prime provide faster execution, lower memory usage, and improved garbage collection, enabling organizations to run the same workloads on fewer cloud resources, thereby reducing infrastructure and operating costs.

Overall, the most important Java trends for enterprises in 2026 include an increased use of Java for AI workloads, widespread migration from Oracle Java to OpenJDK, and a growing focus on performance-driven cloud cost optimization, according to the report.

“Enterprises are prioritizing predictable licensing, and high-performance Java platforms that support both traditional applications and modern AI-driven systems,” Azul says.

“Java continues to prove its durability and strategic importance as enterprises navigate one of the most transformative periods in modern computing,” says Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO at Azul, in a statement.

“From powering the next generation of AI-driven applications to helping organizations regain control of cloud spend and modernize their estates, Java remains at the center of innovation and operational excellence.”