Dive Brief:
- Nearly half of CIOs – 46% – named AI adoption and increased automation as their top priority over the next five years, according to a survey of 4,300 C-suite executives published Tuesday by Rimini Street. The software company partnered with Censuswide to conduct the global survey of CIOs, CEOs, CISOs and CFOs.
- More than one-third of respondents named strengthening business continuity and disaster recovery as a top business imperative in their five-year plan, while a similar proportion indicated that talent and skills development is at the top of their priority list.
- C-suite leaders reported different near-term goals, with 44% planning actions around cybersecurity and risk management, 41% focused on compliance and regulatory requirements and 39% looking to optimize and reduce costs.
Dive Insight:
While AI adoption will be a top priority for many CIOs over the next five years, return on investment and full benefit realization for AI projects remains murky.
Nearly two-thirds of business leaders surveyed by IT services company CDW earlier this year estimated AI investment ROI rates of 50% or less. Less than 2% of business leaders reported 100% returns on their projects. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff cautioned against seeking precise projections on when enterprises will capture AI’s full value, speaking during the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Florida, in October.
That hasn’t slowed vendors from offering enterprises a wide range of new AI tools to adopt – including Salesforce. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and other tech giants are investing billions into building out infrastructure to support growing AI workloads.
Executive expectations on ROI for new technology investments vary, according to Rimini Street. The different views on technology ROI could stem from overpromising on the technology or lack of clarity on how tech investments translate to business outcomes, the company said.
On average, Rimini Street survey respondents expect to see only a 27% benefit realization for their technology investments in the next one to two years. ROI is expected to increase to 37% within three to five years, topping out at 48% of total expected returns in a span of more than six years.
“As economic and operational pressures intensify, executives are taking a far more disciplined approach to technology investment,” Rimini Street CFO Michael Perica said in a press release.
