Dive Brief:
- Nearly one-third of IT leaders said integrating AI was the top priority in 2023, according to Snow Software’s IT Priorities survey of 800 IT decision-makers. Security risk mitigation and IT cost reduction were also high on the CIO agenda.
- Budget concerns traversed tech categories, the report found. Around one-quarter of respondents said cloud services, security tools, hardware, on-prem software and SaaS applications were a major source of overspending. One in 5 IT leaders said they were already spending too much on generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard.
- “There is no business as usual for IT leaders today,” Alastair Pooley, CIO at Snow Software, said in a release accompanying the report. “Between navigating challenging economic conditions and the emergence of game-changing technologies like generative AI, the role of IT is in flux.”
Dive Insight:
IT leaders see opportunities for future cost reduction in many of the same places they’ve increased spending.
Tech investments increased in several broad categories this year. Three-quarters of respondents increased spending on security tools, and slightly fewer on SaaS applications. Two-thirds poured more into cloud infrastructure and services, the report said.
But more doesn’t always equate to better, especially when it’s not clear where the money is going or what it is accomplishing. Two-thirds of IT leaders indicated business units procure far more cloud and SaaS than IT departments realize.
Tech leaders and CIOs know the lack of visibility is a problem worth solving, but its complexity makes it challenging, according to the report. From cybersecurity protocols to a lack of resources or skills, there’s not just one answer CIOs cited as the problem in the report.
The pressure to gain better visibility into spending and usage is expected to expand as organizations push for innovation and adopt generative AI tools, the report said, as IT leaders may find funding shifting to emerging technologies.
“The complexity of technology seems to grow exponentially every year, making it vital for IT leaders to address this issue relatively quickly or be at risk of being left behind,” the report said.
