Global CIOs Are Ready to Scale AI, but Enterprises Aren't Quite as Ready

Lenovo’s third annual Global CIO Report shows that AI is IT’s most pressing priority, second only to cybersecurity.
However, speed of adoption and security are the biggest barriers to scaling AI.

HONG KONG – AI is a top priority for CIOs, according to the findings of Lenovo’s third annual Global CIO Report. Inside the Tornado: How AI is Reshaping Corporate IT Today shows that while CIOs urgently need to adopt and scale AI, their ambitions are threatened by speed, security and other organizational functions that are lagging behind in AI readiness.

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In stark contrast to previous years, CIOs are bringing non-traditional responsibilities into play to focus more on core IT functions. Just over half (51%) of CIOs believe AI/ML is an urgent priority, second only to cybersecurity. This urgency is directly related to the pressure CIOs face to drive business impact rather than maintain and sustain operations. 84% of CIOs said they are being evaluated on business outcome metrics more than ever before.

“Today’s CIOs are working in a tornado of innovation. After years of IT expansion into non-traditional roles, we are now seeing AI pushing CIOs back to their core responsibilities,” said Ken Wong, president of Lenovo’s Solutions and Services Group. “This is driven by the clear promise of AI adoption combined with the pressure IT leaders face to demonstrate the value of these investments and deliver measurable business results.”

CIOs are optimistic about the impact of AI – 80% believe AI breakthroughs and developments will have a significant impact on their business. At the same time, CIOs see speed of adoption and security as the biggest barriers to scaling AI. Large portions of their organizations are not AI-ready, which directly impacts IT’s ability to scale AI quickly. Specifically, they mentioned: new product lines (78%), company policies/ethical usage (76%), supply chain (74%), IT technical capabilities (51%).

What remains compared to previous years is the ongoing challenge for IT to measure the impact. 61 percent of CIOs said they find it very or extremely difficult to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) on technology investments. While 96% of CIOs expect investments to increase over the next 12 months, 42% of respondents admit that they do not expect a positive ROI from AI investments until the next two to three years.

AI as a net positive for sustainability

Sustainability remains an important part of the CIO role, but this is somewhat complicated by the fact that 38% of respondents admit that sustainability is becoming less of a priority due to the resources being spent on AI adoption. Ultimately, CIOs see AI as a net benefit for sustainability – 78% say using AI will make it easier to achieve their organization’s IT sustainability goals.

Questions remain about human capital and financial resources

While CIOs share an optimistic assessment of IT’s own AI readiness, continued AI investments could lead to additional staffing and financial gaps. 89% of CIOs warn that as AI technologies become more widespread, the role of human capital will become even more important. Given anticipated budget constraints, increasing staffing levels to meet these AI ambitions could prove challenging.

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While 96% of CIOs say they expect increased AI investments in the coming year, only 20% expect overall IT budgets to increase by more than 10%. CIOs admit that AI research and adoption diverts resources and attention from other key IT areas, including cloud adoption/digital transformation (48%), sustainability (38%) and employee compensation (38%).

“There is a clear opportunity for us to help companies understand AI, accelerate their scaling, and provide advice on how to effectively measure the impact of these investments,” Wong added. “Our customers are already using AI to drive sustainability, security and digital transformation efforts. We can help them achieve further results by developing coherent delivery strategies that meet CIOs’ challenges.”

The Lenovo Global Study of CIOs is available at https://www.lenovo.com/ai-reshaping-it.

About Lenovo

Lenovo is a $62 billion global technology company, ranked No. 217 on the Fortune Global 500, employing 77,000 people around the world and serving millions of customers daily in 180 markets. With a bold vision to bring smarter technology to everyone, Lenovo has built on its success as the world’s largest PC company by continuing to expand into growth areas that drive the advancement of “new IT” technologies (client, edge, cloud, network, etc.). Intelligence) including servers, storage, mobile devices, software, solutions and services. This transformation, along with Lenovo’s world-changing innovations, creates a more inclusive, trustworthy and intelligent future for everyone, everywhere. Lenovo is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY). To learn more, visit https://www.lenovo.com and read the latest news on our StoryHub.