A report on IT Priorities revealed that CIOs are inclining towards increased AI investments while finding a balance with reducing costs.
Snow Software, the global leader in technology intelligence, released its annual survey revealing that artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the mindshare of IT leaders this year and next, as 72% believe their organization will be using more AI in the next two to three years. While AI may be the top priority for IT leaders for the foreseeable future, the report suggests that continued economic uncertainty around the globe is forcing CIOs to look for further cost savings, ways to reduce risk, embrace the power of platforms and more.
The Snow Software IT Priorities Report polled 800 IT leaders from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, to assess how IT decision-makers’ priorities have shifted over the past 12 months and outline their top areas of focus as they head into the new year.
AI sees rapid adoption
Business leaders across countries are showcasing excitement about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in their projects. AI is proving to be a technology with a fast adoption rate across the IT sector. Snow Software’s report revealed that integrating AI was the top priority in 2023 for 32% of IT leaders, followed by reducing security risks (31%) and reducing IT costs (29%). When asked about the use of technology, 82% of IT leaders said they were completely prepared to leverage generative AI technologies, while 62% are seeing increased investments in emerging applications like ChatGPT and Google Bard.
While there is increased enthusiasm about integrating AI in tech stacks, amid economic uncertainty, technology leaders would have to think twice about AI investments to ensure that the outputs are in line with reduced IT costs.
Balance between risks and costs
It has been a constant struggle for IT leaders to find the right balance between their investments and maintaining predefined goals at reduced costs. CIOs are stuck in the decision between spending and saving. The IT Priorities report shows that 75% of IT leaders report an increase in investment in security tools in 2023, while 69% report increases in SaaS and 67% in cloud infrastructure. These same IT leaders also reported overspending on cloud infrastructure (28%), cloud services (28%) and managed services (26%).
To spend or to save remains the most crucial question for CIOs as they move ahead with IT investments this fiscal year.
Key findings of the report also include:
- 67% of IT leaders believe that the business is buying more SaaS and cloud technologies than they are aware of, and 75% recognize the risk of these visibility gaps.
- There is a huge drop in IT leaders who believe they are drowning in data (46%) from last year, with 87% saying the data they receive is actionable and that they can clearly apply it to decisions. However, 91% of respondents said the need for investment into tools and technologies to extract value from data remains high.
- 82% of IT leaders believe their role has changed drastically over the past few years. Learning new skills for a new technology (56%) and leadership and/or management (42%) were voted as the top two reasons for the changes this year.
- A lack of visibility, the ongoing drive for further cost savings, cybersecurity concerns and more may be why nine in ten IT leaders (88%) are moving towards platforms and away from point tools.
Cloud migration and digital transformation have dropped out of the top slots for IT leaders’ priorities for 2023 and 2024. The findings may indicate that these trends are now seen as “business as usual” activities, a relatively large departure from last year.
