Austin, Texas, USA, March 6, 2026
The Futurum Group today released findings from its “1H 2026 Digital Leadership & CIO Global Enterprise Decision Maker Survey Report,” a three-wave study tracking 203 to 248 global CIO respondents per quarter across CY2025 that reveals a fundamental shift in CIO AI priorities: productivity as a desired AI outcome collapsed 25.7 percentage points (67.5% → 41.8%) while innovation and modernization each nearly doubled to 32.4%, signaling the end of the “do things faster” era and the beginning of strategic AI transformation.
The data documents a decisive pivot in enterprise AI expectations. In Q2 CY25, CIOs ranked productivity (67.5%) and automation (69.0%) as their top AI goals. By Q4, productivity had fallen to 41.8% and automation to 54.1%. In their place, innovation surged from 17.2% to 32.4% (+15.1 percentage points), modernization from 18.2% to 32.4% (+14.2 pts), and scalability rose to 32.8%. CIOs are no longer asking, “Can AI make my team 10% faster?” They are asking, “Can AI help us build new products and scale in ways we couldn’t before?”
The shift extends beyond desired outcomes. Pilot-stage AI adoption collapsed 31.2 percentage points—the single largest item swing in the survey—as three-quarters of CIOs (74.2%) now report having thorough, well-formed AI implementation plans. AI/ML as a top IT spend category more than doubled over CY25, rising from 13.3% to 29.5%, making it the fastest-growing line item in the entire IT budget. Meanwhile, AI is migrating upstream into R&D: department-level AI adoption in R&D nearly tripled from 9.9% to 27.9%, while Sales AI usage dropped 18.4 percentage points. CIOs are connecting AI to product development and core IP creation, not just sales enablement.
Figure 1: What CIOs Want From AI Has Fundamentally Changed
“The generic efficiency argument for AI is dead,” said Dion Hinchcliffe, Vice President and Principal Analyst at The Futurum Group. “CIO AI priorities have shifted decisively from making existing processes faster to enabling capabilities that were previously impossible. Vendors still leading with productivity gains are addressing yesterday’s buyer. The 2026 CIO wants AI that drives innovation, modernizes legacy systems, and creates entirely new business models.”
Key Findings:
- The Productivity Collapse: Productivity as an AI desired outcome fell 25.7 percentage points (67.5% → 41.8%), while automation dropped 14.9 points (69.0% → 54.1%). Innovation and modernization each nearly doubled to 32.4%, and scalability rose to 32.8%.
- The Pilot Era Ends: Pilot-stage AI adoption collapsed 31.2 percentage points (68.5% → 37.3%), the largest single-item swing in the survey. Three-quarters of CIOs (74.2%) now have thorough AI implementation plans, and AI/ML as a top spend category more than doubled (13.3% → 29.5%).
- R&D’s AI Breakout: R&D department AI usage nearly tripled (9.9% → 27.9%) while Sales AI dropped 18.4 percentage points (68.0% → 49.6%). AI is migrating from sales enablement into product development and core IP creation.
- Platform Spend Rotation: Spending is shifting toward workflow orchestration platforms (ServiceNow net +10.7 pts, IBM Cloud +14.8 pts) and away from infrastructure-centric providers (Cisco −12.3 pts, AWS −9.8 pts). CIO budgets are moving from systems of infrastructure to systems of action.
- The Cybersecurity Normalization: Cybersecurity as an IT spending priority dropped 32.5 percentage points (81.3% → 48.8%), with parallel declines across buying drivers, AI concerns, and challenge rankings. Cybersecurity is transitioning from a strategic initiative to an operational baseline.
- The Talent–Technology Convergence: Talent acquisition (54.1%) and keeping pace with emerging technologies (53.7%) converged as co-equal top CIO challenges, indicating organizational absorptive capacity—not technology access—is now the binding constraint.
Futurum Intelligence subscribers can access the full “1H 2026 Digital Leadership & CIO Global Enterprise Decision Maker Survey Report” and the interactive visualization dashboard at app.futurumgroup.com.
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Author Information
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.
