“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.
Most people think AI in business in 2026 will be about agentic AI.
Instead, it’s actually going to be more about redesigning broken processes before they can actually automate anything.
2/ It’s a fair question. At the top of the funnel, @Copilot now counts ~150M monthly active users, powered by aggressive bundling across consumer and enterprise Microsoft 365 as the tech giant ...pursues AI hegemony.
AI isn’t an add-on anymore. It’s now the interface.
1/ Did Microsoft succeed in turning 400M Microsoft 365 users into AI users overnight?
That question is suddenly getting a lot of attention this week, as the Microsoft 365 → Microsoft 365 Copilot ...rebrand resurfaces across search + social (via a @AskPerplexity viral thread).
3️⃣ Supercharge + AI upgrade identity and access strategy.
4️⃣ Cybersecurity-first, with AI to reduce friction.
5️⃣Embed digital trust into every workflow.
6️⃣Consolidate and ...modernize legacy stacks with AI-first platforms.
3/
Now, here’s my 9 IT resolutions for 2026, based on our CIO surveys and over a hundred CIO convos last year:
1️⃣ Stop running AI experiments + make every AI initiative measurable.
2️⃣ Treat... AI agents like you do human talent.
2/
9 IT resolutions for 2026 | @CIOOnline
Great round up from actual CIOs, from AI to creating value.
1/
9 IT resolutions for 2026
From further weaving AI agents into workflows and teams to fostering greater digital and AI fluency across the wor...
www.cio.com
The challenge for software engineers in 2026 and beyond
My take: CIOs with engineering teams have a great deal work to do this year to address the enormous implications of AI on the entire ...software development lifecycle.
The challenge for software engineers in 2026 — and beyond
CIOs can support their teams in navigating seismic change as AI reshapes workflows and difficulties from past adoption waves linger.
www.ciodive.com
The graph of how long AI models can stay on task from
@METR_Evals, showing rapid leaps and bounds recently, referenced above:
For the third essay in my #AIFuturesFor2026 series, let’s explore one of the most important stories in AI right now: It’s not just the growth of model capability, which is undeniably impressive, ...but the shifting frontier between what models can actually do, how long they can do
@MarshaCollier @AkwyZ @sarbjeetjohal @eric_kavanagh @JimHarris @marshallk @david_terrar @ThadOfSphere @emollick @shapshak Exactly right, Marsha. Teaching children all of those things was always ...important, but it’s even more so in the era of AI. Or we won’t be able to instill them in our machines.
Happy holidays and hope you’ve been very well!
@dhinchcliffe @AkwyZ @sarbjeetjohal @eric_kavanagh @JimHarris @marshallk @david_terrar @ThadOfSphere @emollick @shapshak We need to encourage humans to think even more. Teach children to create in ...their own brains first. Because,
"Humans are the source of meaning, ethics, responsibility, and purpose. AI can amplify those things, but it cannot originate them."
As part of getting ready for 2026, I’ve been ruminating over the way artificial intelligence is actively reshaping the very foundations of software development. As a long-time developer and ...enterprise architect, it’s sobering what I’ve witnessed in terms of the capabilities of
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