“As AI becomes integral to business strategy, CIOs are being forced to reconsider how and where it’s optimal to deploy compute resources. The need for low latency, cost efficiency, and compliance in AI applications is driving a rapid shift toward hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. For IT leaders, this means 2025 will be a pivotal year for a comprehensive realignment of their infrastructure with the realities of the AI era.”
Enterprise IT in 2025 is entering a period of profound reinvention as CIOs push AI beyond isolated functions, wrestle with the immature foundations of agentic AI, and escalate efforts to counter suddenly looming post-quantum threats. Futurum’s Q2 2025 CIO Insights survey reveals 89% of IT leaders driving AI for strategic transformation, 80% elevating quantum-resilient security to board-level priority, and 71% rethinking optimal cloud environments under intensifying AI workload pressures.
Three primary reasons are driving this change.
Dion Hinchcliffe is a distinguished thought leader, IT expert, and enterprise architect, celebrated for his strategic advisory with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies. With over 25 years of experience, Dion works with the leadership teams of top enterprises, as well as leading tech companies, in bridging the gap between business and technology, focusing on enterprise AI, IT management, cloud computing, and digital business. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, industry analyst, and author, known for his insightful and in-depth contributions to digital strategy, IT topics, and digital transformation. Dion’s influence is particularly notable in the CIO community, where he engages actively with CIO roundtables and has been ranked numerous times as one of the top global influencers of Chief Information Officers. He also serves as an executive fellow at the SDA Bocconi Center for Digital Strategies.
Reminds me of the top-down marketing problem. Announcing a big integrated stack is easy, getting a CIO to adopt one workload without migration is the actual test. Oracle's cross-estate security angle... is their strongest card imo.
@waynesadin Exactly. In IT today, I believe there should be a graceful transition from project management to product management over time for many key systems.
#CIOChat
A4. "Products" are durable loci of value (e.g., a "commercial loan" or "e-commerce hub") and need Product Managers to guide their development. When a step-change is needed (switching from a vendor ...package to in-house code, or a major feature upgrade), that's a Project.
When I run
#CIOChat Great chat today! Join us at 2pm ET next Thursday. Topic: Insourcing Is Back
Hope you enjoy our movie tie-ins to intro next week’s topic.
Please suggest topics and invite your IT ...colleagues. Every Thursday at 2pm ET.
@dhinchcliffe That's because it's just not relevant any longer.
A3) That's a tough Q. Making a PM responsible/accountable for an outcome is very different than making them R/A for "successful" completion. The sort of "we went through stages 1-5 then assigned a ...PM, ..." thing can't go on. They need a voice from strategy time on.
#CIOChat
@dhinchcliffe #CIOChat A3: Mykill criteria: if its called #PMO or PFMO it gets folded, but don't kill the messenger.
@waynesadin Amen to that! Making them the bean counters is a terrible waste! #ciochat
A3. A PMO needs to be the "canary in the coal mine" on projects, identifying risks & tracking costs.
Project SPONSORS--who come primarily from the business side--own the benefits & get ...charged the costs. They also bear the risks: the risk of NOT changing, & the risk of cost/time
@joannefriedman re: PMO -> “Value creation” offices.
In some orgs, I even see them called “Value maximization” functions.
Trying to change the function to the outcome. Which I do ...understand to a degree. But then no one knows what role it really has.
#CIOChat
@dhinchcliffe #CIOChat A2: Most PMOs are becoming "Value Creation" offices and many PM's are facing job loss as roles combine. I see a #Compliance or GR management future for many of them.
@dhinchcliffe @PMInstitute "going to become an execution hub"? PMO has been the heart & soul of organizational change initiatives for decades (I built my first in 1996 to oversee Y2K)...no future... tense needed.
#CIOchat
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