Three tech companies offer dividends well above the S&P 500 average of 1.1% while benefiting from artificial intelligence (AI) demand, according to The Motley Fool. IBM pays $6.76 per share yearly, a 2.7% yield, and has raised it for 31 straight years. It generated over $15 billion in free cash flow against $6.3 billion in dividends, though third-quarter revenue of $17 billion rose only 5%. Digital Realty Trust, a data centre operator, pays $4.88 per share, a 2.9% yield. Revenue in the first half of 2026 rose 29% to $1.9 billion. Cisco pays $1.68 per share, a 1.6% yield. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $17 billion rose 18%, and the stock is up nearly 50% over the past year.

IBM has announced tools to give AI agents verified identities and limited access, unveiled at its TechXchange 2026 conference in Atlanta on October 27, 2026. HashiCorp Vault now covers AI agents. Its new Agent Identity records who owns each agent and what authority it holds, while Vault issues short-lived credentials, enforces least-privilege access, and can revoke access in real time if an agent acts without permission. IBM watsonx Orchestrate lets teams discover, contain, and evaluate agents built on Amazon Bedrock, Microsoft Foundry, and Google Gemini. IBM cited Gartner's forecast that the average Fortune 500 enterprise will use over 150,000 AI agents by 2028. Only 13% of organisations believe they have the right governance in place.

IBM is betting that quantum computing, not artificial intelligence, will drive its next phase of growth. Chief executive officer Arvind Krishna called quantum "a significant long-term opportunity" on the company's third-quarter earnings call. Third-quarter revenue rose 5% year over year to $17.1 billion, beating the $16.82 billion consensus. Adjusted earnings per share climbed 11% to $2.95, against expectations of $2.86. Software revenue grew 8%, while z17 mainframe sales fell 20%. IBM expects to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029, using error-correcting codes that need fewer physical qubits. It has signed 16 quantum enterprise agreements this year and is building a manufacturing facility in Poughkeepsie, New York. The company still expects 4% to 5% revenue growth for the year.