Surveying 271 IT decision-makers throughout North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, Foundry’s CIO Tech Ballot finds an upward pattern in tech budgets, with a big emphasis on cybersecurity and AI funding. Amidst funds will increase, IT leaders face challenges like underfunding and talent shortages, highlighting the significance of upskilling and AI analysis.
Tech budgets are anticipated to proceed rising in 2024. Simply 14% of respondents stated that they’d be reducing down on IT spending, whereas 86% of respondents stated their budgets will both rise (54%) or keep the identical (32%).
The annual CIO Tech Ballot: Tech Priorities Research has been issued by Foundry, the media, knowledge, and martech enterprise of IDG and writer of CIO.com. For the approaching 12 months, the survey examines how companies intend to spend their IT expenditures and focus their tech adoption initiatives.
“For greater than fifteen years, CIO has explored the expertise priorities of IT leaders via the CIO Tech Ballot research,” stated Amy Bennett, World Editor in Chief at Foundry. “Through the years, cybersecurity initiatives have constantly consumed a big share of IT’s funds and time, and this 12 months is not any completely different. However now IT leaders are carving out house for AI, with most saying they’re rising their funding in and exploring AI instruments and applied sciences. That is new and quickly advancing territory, and IT decision-makers might want to discover a stability between investments in expertise innovation and operations.”
AI Overtaking Cybersecurity
This 12 months, AI has overtaken cybersecurity as the highest precedence for IT Resolution Makers (ITDMs), suggesting that IT funds aren’t maintaining with the division’s expectations. Whereas 86% of respondents talked about secure or rising budgets this 12 months, 43% nonetheless establish funds shortage as the first barrier to the adoption of recent expertise over the past 12 months.
The 2 largest obstacles to the implementation of recent expertise have been personnel shortages and organizational resistance to alter (34% and 32%, respectively), and insufficient talent units for the job. To be able to keep updated and efficiently implement new applied sciences, ITDMs are subsequently placing a larger emphasis on reskilling (63%) and upskilling (70%) present folks.
ITDMs are experiencing the AI craze in 2024, as AI-related tasks are vying for IT executives’ time and a focus in addition to tech cash. IT executives put aside a considerable amount of money and time for AI analysis and implementation. AI-enabled expertise was cited by 29% of respondents as their most important technological venture this 12 months, up 23 proportion factors from solely 6% the 12 months earlier than and anticipated to steer the checklist in 2024. Moreover, 64% of respondents stated AI had probably the most potential to drastically change how their firm runs.
With 70% of researchers now investigating or testing new tasks in that area, AI-enabled expertise is on the high of the checklist of applied sciences below lively investigation. The second-place choice, data-modeling instruments to assist inner AI/ML initiatives, scored 60%, indicating that IT executives are realizing how vital it’s to have a powerful knowledge infrastructure to be able to facilitate AI.
In 2024, there can be a notable shift in tech funding in the direction of synthetic intelligence (AI). Of the areas getting larger funding, 70% will go in the direction of AI, whereas 68% will go towards cybersecurity. In distinction, AI was included within the 2023 analysis because the sector experiencing the fourth-highest development in funding, at 45%. A 12 months later, it is a startling 35 proportion level acquire.
Cybersecurity Ranks Simply Behind AI in 2024 Strategic Priorities
Cybersecurity stays a high subject for IT leaders, however the notable rise in AI funding projected for 2024. 64% of respondents agree that cybersecurity safety is probably the most vital space of improvement they want to focus on within the subsequent 12 months, regardless of AI-related tasks being chosen as probably the most vital venture for this 12 months. Moreover, resolving cybersecurity points was the highest distraction, diverting CIOs’ consideration from inventive and strategic work, based on Foundry’s newly printed State of the CIO report.
Moreover, cybersecurity was talked about as having obtained the second-highest enhance in funding this 12 months at 68%, a minor rise from 65% the earlier 12 months, when cybersecurity topped the checklist by 16 proportion factors (with BI/Analytics instruments coming in second at 49%).
Forty-six p.c of the ITDMs who count on to work with a expertise vendor this 12 months stated that the aim of such partnerships is to bolster cybersecurity defenses. Upon analyzing the actual cybersecurity merchandise that ITDMs are actually investigating, the preferred ones are DevSecOps instruments (25%) and conduct monitoring & evaluation (35%), adopted by Zero Belief (33%), container safety (28%), and cloud knowledge safety (26%).
Concerning the CIO Tech Ballot: Tech Priorities Research
The purpose of the 2024 CIO Tech Poll: Tech Priorities research was to search out out which technological areas IT executives are most curious about over the subsequent 12 months and to gauge the course of funding in these areas. The survey was despatched on-line to Foundry’s viewers in January 2024. 271 IT decision-makers kind the idea of the outcomes. Each responder to the research is engaged within the course of of constructing giant purchases of safety or IT items and providers.
Corporations represented by respondents are largely based mostly in North America (50%) with a small proportion additionally in Europe (23%) and the Asia-Pacific area (23%). The industries from which these corporations are drawn embody expertise, monetary providers, manufacturing, healthcare, and providers. The common income of the respondents’ enterprises is $5.36 billion, with 13,405 staff.
