Gartner survey of CIOs highlights investments in AI, cloud and cybersecurity

A new survey from Gartner found that a majority of CIOs are focusing their investments this year and next year on AI and distributed cloud technology.

The 2022 CIO and Technology Executive Survey features data gleaned from 2,387 CIO and technology executive respondents in 85 countries, representing about $9 trillion in revenue/public-sector budgets and $198 billion in IT spending. The survey focused on on “business composability” — which involves the mindset, technologies and set of operating capabilities that enable organizations to innovate and adapt quickly to changing business needs.

Monika Sinha, research vice president at Gartner, said business composability is an “antidote to volatility.”

“Sixty-three percent of CIOs at organizations with high composability* reported superior business performance compared with peers or competitors in the past year. They are better able to pursue new value streams through technology, too,” Sinha said, adding that the findings from the survey were presented during the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Americas. 

Topping the list of planned investments for 2022, cyber and information security was cited by 66% of all respondents as an area that they expected to increase investment for next year. 

More tha half said business intelligence and data analytics would also be areas where they plan to invest heavily next year. 

“There is a continued need to invest in cybersecurity as the environment becomes more challenging. A high level of composability would help an enterprise recover faster and potentially even minimize the effects of a cybersecurity incident,” Sinha said.

CIOs and technology executives at high-composability enterprises told Gartner that for 2022, they expect an increase in revenues by about 7.7% and a growth in IT budgets by about 4.2%. Low-composability enterprises only expect both to increase by 3.4% and 3.1%, respectively, according to Gartner. 

Sinha explained that most high-composability enterprises set up strategic planning and budgeting as a continuous and iterative activity to adjust to change more easily. 

“Without big deficits to remedy elsewhere, CIOs can afford to invest in composability, especially for IT developers and business architects who can design in a composable manner,” Sinha said. adding that globally, IT budgets are expected to grow at the fastest rate in over ten years with an average growth of 3.6% in overall IT budget for 2022 reported among all survey respondents.