Top 3 Priorities for CIOs in 2024

As technology leaders, CIOs have become the primary drivers of innovation and growth at their organizations, and in more recent years, they are also the architects of improving efficiencies and operations. This was partly due to the need to optimize costs during uncertain economic times, but according to Gartner’s CIO Agenda for 2024, “there will be an ongoing need for greater efficiency” even with an improved economy.

Gartner’s CIO Agenda also recommends that CIOs work cross functionally with their C-suite peers this year “to overcome technology talent shortages and budget constraints, and ultimately, meet the expected value from their enterprise’s technology investments.”

In addition, organizations are looking to their CIOs to manage the implementation of AI – from establishing governance policies to finding practical use cases. In conversations with CIOs this year, they are ready to move on from the AI hype to demonstrate measurable value. Out of sheer necessity, CIOs continue to keep cybersecurity high on their list of priorities. 

Here, we look more closely at IT leaders’ top goals and challenges, based on our proprietary Leadership Perspective Survey of more than 2,000 CIOs in Evanta communities.
 

Top Priorities for CIOs in the Technology Function

In 2024, CIOs cited cybersecurity strategies as their top functional priority for the third year in a row. For the first time in our survey, AI and Machine Learning launched into the number two spot, after not appearing in the top five last year. 

Data and analytics is not far behind at number three, reflecting the need for CIOs to help their organizations make data-driven decisions. Both data and digital business priorities have been consistently in the top five for the past 3 years. 

Applications and IT strategy, governance and operating models trade places around number four or five, with IT strategy moving up this year. The importance of data, strategy and governance could be related to AI, as CIOs have said that those are foundational pieces critical to implementing AI initiatives.

Below, we dive into CIOs’ top three priorities in more detail, including the key opportunities and challenges to making progress in these areas.

Reinforcing Cybersecurity Strategies

Strengthening their organization’s cybersecurity is essential for today’s CIOs, as evidenced by technology leaders placing this issue at the top of their priority list year after year. The proliferation of data, tools and technologies – and threats – require an integrated cybersecurity strategy and partnership across the business. As one CIO explained, “The CISO cannot do it alone – it has to be done together from day one. And it is only getting more complex.” 

These are CIOs’ specific goals and challenges in executing on their cybersecurity strategies. More CIOs cited complying with regulatory requirements this year, possibly reflecting the recent SEC rules around reporting cyber incidents for public companies. Their top challenge remains the rapidly changing threat landscape.

After our survey, we conduct hundreds of follow-up conversations with CIOs about their priorities. Here is a sample of what CIOs are saying about managing cybersecurity issues:

Cyber touches everything we work on: data, applications, physical security."

All of us are struggling with how we release AI into our organizations safely.”

We’re focusing on prevention now – and next will be recovery.”

CIOs primarily want to learn more about cybersecurity from a strategic perspective (75%), followed by an execution point of view (65%).
 

Implementing Artificial Intelligence Initiatives

AI is not new to CIOs, but the focus and attention from a variety of stakeholders is putting pressure on them to implement AI initiatives in 2024. As one CIO explained, there is “lots of pressure from the Board, and they are opening up the budget for AI.” 

As enterprise leaders, CIOs aim to increase operational efficiencies and productivity. AI can help create those efficiencies, but CIOs have to move beyond test cases and demonstrate the value their organization is realizing from AI. Measuring the impact can be a challenge, as one technology leader commented, “How do we measure the real benefits of introducing AI into specific processes?”

In our survey, CIOs cited these goals and challenges in executing on AI and machine learning. Their primary goal is the same as last year – to use AI to improve processes and efficiencies, and their primary challenge is the lack of skilled talent needed to do so.

Here is a sample of what CIOs are saying about AI this year:

We're looking at how we can save people time so they can do the things that are most important.”

How do we create a bigger impact outside of the low-hanging fruit?”

AI delves down into data readiness, and people don't have clean enough data or data structured properly to support AI work.”

CIOs would like to discuss and share more about AI and machine learning from a strategic perspective (81%), followed by an execution point of view (70%).
 

Improving Data & Analytics

In the area of data and analytics, CIOs’ third highest priority, executives report that enabling data-driven decisions (76%) is their primary goal. The obstacle to achieving this goal is data quality and availability (54%). Data and analytics is consistently a top five priority, possibly reflecting the proliferation of data and the need for quality data as a basis for AI and other digital business initiatives.

In our sample of what CIOs are saying about helping their businesses become more data driven, it’s clear that many organizations are still on a data journey. 

We are gradually becoming more analytics driven. If you don’t have this culture established, too many people are not embracing the opportunities.”

Data literacy and accountability are a challenge – data belongs to the whole organization, not just the IT team.”

Last year, we migrated data to a new environment. This year, we will focus on data governance to ensure the value of data and healthy data. Then we can get all sorts of insights.”

CIOs want to discuss and learn about becoming more data-driven from both a strategic perspective (73%) and an execution perspective (71%).
 

CIOs’ Priorities Across the Enterprise

In our annual survey, we ask CIOs about their priorities across the enterprise, in addition to the focus areas for their function. For the second year in a row, CIOs report that increasing operational efficiencies and productivity is their number one priority as an enterprise leader. All of their peers across the C-suite also named this their top enterprise priority for 2024.

Here’s a look at CIOs’ top enterprise initiatives for this year.

CIOs are aligned with their peers in selecting driving growth as their second highest priority. Optimizing or reducing costs remains important for technology leaders, despite an improved economic outlook. For the most part, CIOs’ top five enterprise priorities have remained consistent for the past two years.
 

The Outlook for CIOs

As innovation, technology and digital business opportunities continue to evolve, so too does the role of the CIO. For the past several years, technology leaders have increasingly become strategic business leaders, driving growth and cost optimization, providing resilient platforms, managing the use and insights gained from data and enabling customer service – all while securing the organization’s most valuable assets. 

As Gartner sums it up in their Top Strategic Technology Trends of 2024, the role of the CIO is to “build and protect your organization while generating value.” 

Their challenges in 2024 are to manage technology investments wisely, enable the secure adoption of new technologies and find or upskill the talent needed to take their business into the future. 

With the emphasis on AI this year and how to realize value from it, CIOs also have a huge opportunity to impact their organizations. As one CIO noted, “I see this as the rebirth of the CIO role – cloud changed things, then mobile. AI is all that and then some.”

To stay up-to-date with CIOs and their top priorities, join a regional Evanta CIO community near you. If you are already a member, explore an opportunity to connect with your peers through the MyEvanta membership app.

This article is an update to a previous report, which you can find here: Top 3 Goals & Challenges for CIOs in 2023. 

Based on more than 2,100 CIOs’ responses to Evanta’s 2024 Leadership Perspective Survey.