Enterprise IT leaders are chasing big promises: AI-driven innovation, real-time intelligence, and modern operations powered by the cloud. But the path from strategy to execution is far from smooth. To understand what’s working — and what’s holding teams back — more than 300 IT professionals across industries including technology, finance, government and healthcare were
surveyed. Respondents ranged from CIOs and CTOs to enterprise architects and heads of data and infrastructure, offering a layered view of today’s data modernization challenges. The results reveal a story of momentum and friction. While organizations are prioritizing AI, analytics and cloud modernization, most are still grappling with fragmented systems, talent gaps and lagging
governance. Ambitions are high, but execution varies widely. This report unpacks those insights across the following strategic focus areas, each aligned with the top data infrastructure priorities identified by IT leaders in the survey. When asked which areas would be most critical over the next 12–24 months, respondents pointed to: • Generative and agentic AI readiness (42%) • Analytics and business intelligence (41%) • Cloud modernization (30%) • Customer experience optimization (23%) • Business process automation (26%) • Supply chain optimization (6%) • AI-powered data management and collaboration (13%).