As 2025 dawns, CIOs face an IT landscape that differs significantly from just a year ago. AI, once viewed as a novel innovation, is now mainstream, impacting just about facet of the enterprise. Over the next 12 months, IT leaders can look forward to even more innovations, as well as some serious challenges.
To keep ahead of the curve, CIOs should continuously evaluate their business and technology strategies, adjusting them as necessary to address rapidly evolving technology, business, and economic practices. Most of all, the following 10 priorities should be at the top of your 2025 to-do list.
1. Shift AI experimentation to real-world value
Generative AI dominated the headlines in 2024, as organizations launched widespread experiments with the technology to assess its ability to enhance efficiency and deliver new services. Now, however, many IT leaders are moving past the experimentation stage with the expectation that gen AI investments should begin delivering actual value. That’s why, in 2025, the top priority for tech leaders should be ensuring that AI technology investments are strategically aligned to deliver measurable commercial outcomes while also addressing rapidly evolving customer needs, says Bill Pappas, MetLife’s head of global technology and operations.
The economic and competitive landscape is extremely dynamic, and customers expect more seamless, personalized, and efficient experiences, Pappas says. Technology investments, such as in generative AI, are a priority in addressing the need to meet rising expectations while also driving operational agility and resilience.
“In a time where trust and reliability are paramount, meeting these expectations through technology isn’t just a differentiator — it’s now a business imperative,” Pappas says.
2. Become reinvention-ready
CIOs must invest in becoming reinvention-ready, allowing their enterprise to adopt and adapt to rapid technological and market changes, says Andy Tay, global lead of Accenture Cloud First.
Reinvention-ready companies are positioned to succeed in the long term, Tay observes. “With a cloud-powered digital core in place, organizations can unlock advanced intelligence, industry-specific cloud innovations, enterprise efficiency and agility, and integrate new technologies, such as AI-enabled decision-making,” he says.
Tay notes that Accenture research shows that enterprises with digital core investments accelerate their reinvention and innovation, achieving up to 60% higher revenue growth rates and a 40% boost in profits.
“They achieved these results through a culture that embraces change and a strong digital foundation,” he says. “They’re actively investing in innovation while proactively leveraging the cloud to manage technical debt by providing the tools, platforms, and strategies to modernize outdated systems and streamline operations.”
3. Update your IT operating model to mesh with business needs
“The top priority for 2025 is to change your IT operating model to fit your organization’s needs, which have surely changed recently,” says Alan Thorogood, a research leader at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). He defines the IT operating model as the organization’s overall strategy, roles, decision rights, and management processes and controls, as well as the IT team’s internal structure and external engagement with business units, customers, and suppliers.
The IT operating model is driven by the degree of data integration and process standardization across business units, Thorogood observes. He advises beginning the new year by revisiting the organization’s entire architecture and standards. “Are they still fit for purpose?” If not, Thorogood recommends IT leaders build platforms that savvy business managers can use — and encourage or require compliance with enterprise standards and processes.
4. Take advantage of agentic AI
From simple tasks such as generating and distributing content, to more complex use cases such as orchestrating enterprise software, AI agents are transforming industries, states Gary Bailey, CIO at Phillips Edison & Co., owner and operator of grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers.
Finding value-added agentic AI use cases should be a top priority for CIOs in 2025, Bailey says. “Since the introduction of ChatGPT, technology leaders have been searching for ways to leverage AI in their organizations,” he notes. “With AI agents on the horizon, there will be a significant number of business processes that will be a much better fit for AI then we have previously seen.”
Bailey expects there will soon be an AI transformation from personal assistant to digital colleague, with AI performing end-to-end automation tasks alongside the traditional workforce. “These are tasks that can’t be completed with old-school ‘if/then’ logic but require a level of human reasoning to determine the next path,” he says.
“We are in the midst of an extremely opportunistic window,” Bailey states. He points out that business process automation has always been a focus for IT, offering a direct path to contributing to the bottom line. “Historically, we have implemented ERPs, workflows, and RPAs, all with a focus on organizational efficiency and cost reduction,” Bailey says. “AI technology can be a differentiator between us and our competitors, if we embrace it quickly.”
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