Surveying 800 IT leaders across the globe, the fourth annual study by Snow Software, a Flexera company, looks at the evolving priorities driving IT leaders as they navigate further uncertain economic terrain, a focus on efficiency and cost, and a frenzy around the potentials of artificial intelligence.
What’s changed for IT leaders?
Two words: artificial intelligence. AI pivoted IT leaders’ priorities in 2023—and it’s expected to be top of mind for 2024 as well. Sixty-two percent of IT leaders surveyed increased their investment in emerging applications like ChatGPT this year, and 82% say they are completely prepared to leverage generative AI.
What lies ahead for IT leaders next year?
2024’s priorities are not too dissimilar to 2023’s, but previous top contenders like digital transformation and cloud migration will only be playing a supportive role in the year ahead.
Will innovation take a backseat in 2024?
Innovation remains a top priority for many organizations according to CIOs (91%). However, many still say their teams focus too much on reacting to problems, rather than innovating (48%).
IT leaders still struggle to balance savings and spending, with many believing that their primary areas for overspend lie within the cloud domain.
What has stayed the same?
Visibility remains a challenge as 67% of IT leaders say their business is buying more SaaS and cloud services than they are aware of. However, there’s no one reason why visibility remains a challenge. In fact, the drive to reduce visibility gaps may be contributing to organizations moving towards platforms, and away from point tools (88%).
