When I was evaluating the trends impacting IT organizations for 2024, it was clear that generative AI dominated the landscape. We responded with The Generative Enterprise, a report delving into the new opportunities and risks this disruptive technology is bringing with it. But what capabilities should CIOs focus on improving to respond to those implications? What initiatives should they prioritize to seize upon the opportunities and mitigate the risks for the enterprise?

CIO Priorities 2024: Harness AI to Launch Exponential Value Creation explores those questions with five initiatives that many organizations would do well to pursue if they are not already. The challenge of writing a priorities report like this is that each organization will have its own different internal business context that puts a different lens on the implications before it. Yet in 2024, generative AI is like an elephant in the C-suite office, trumpeting its demands to be addressed. Whether through internal build efforts or through new vendor features, generative AI must be addressed by CIOs.

We've seen this script played out before. The consumerization of IT is just taking up a new guise. Consumers bought iPhones and saw the conveniences of mobile apps. CEOs also insisted that they could use their iPhones to get work done. They demanded digital service models that gave them control over when and how they paid as well as customer service that was a chat message away. Generative AI is the next wave lifting the expectations of our customer and our business stakeholders.

The only question is whether you can build a boat that will lift your organization along with it – or will it sink as the currents surge by?

Brian Jackson
Principal Research Director,
Special Projects,
Info-Tech Research Group

2024 Future of IT Survey; N=894 (partial), n=496 (completed)

Info-Tech conducted its online survey between May 23 and August 22, 2023. We received 894 total responses with 496 completed surveys. All respondents work in IT departments. More than 36% of respondents are the most senior IT leader in their organization, and 61% are at director-level seniority or above.

2024 Future of IT CIO interviews; N=23

Between July and September 2023, Info-Tech conducted in-depth interviews with 23 CIOs who took the online survey to receive more in-depth answers and explanations.

Every organization will have its own custom list of priorities based on its internal context. Organizational goals, IT maturity level, and effectiveness of capabilities are some of the important factors to consider. To provide CIOs with a starting point for their list of priorities for 2024, we separated our survey respondents into two groups: high maturity and low maturity.

High-maturity respondents indicated their IT departments were either at “expands the business” or “transforms the business” maturity (n=154). Low-maturity respondents were at “struggles,” “supports,” or “optimizes the business” (n=530). We excluded 218 respondents that skipped describing their IT maturity. By doing this analysis of online survey respondents, we can make clear what sets higher maturity organizations apart in terms of setting priorities.

For our 23 CIO interview respondents, we conducted a thematic analysis of responses about priorities and planning decisions to add more depth and context to each priority.