From embracing AI to modernizing infrastructure, IT leaders are focusing more on key business differentiators, risk mitigation, emerging issues, and transforming IT to accelerate change.

CIOs today are looking to drive a new wave of transformation armed with artificial intelligence, generative AI, and now AI agents, too. There are, of course, many steps as part of that transformation and reinvention.
And those steps contain a mix of IT mainstays and business objectives, as the CIO list of top-of-mind projects show.
Here, we break down the strategic areas and initiatives that IT leaders plan to spend time on this year, according to data from CIO.com’s 2025 State of the CIO survey, additional research results, CIOs, and other enterprise leaders.
1. Business transformation
2. Value creation
3. Impactful AI
4. AI security
5. Enterprise security
6. Customer experience
7. The IT foundation
8. IT modernization
9. Reimagining IT for the future

Based on cio.com story by Mary K. Pratt, MAY 27 2025