technology

The CIO’s Playbook for Business-critical Networks

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CIOs must modernize networks for a 2026 AI-driven landscape. Key priorities include: integrating AI agents as co-workers, embedding security throughout, utilizing AIOps for failure prevention, enhancing employee access and experience, engineering sustainability, transforming networks into innovation platforms, and adopting intelligent automation. Networks are critical for business success, requiring executive focus and strategic redesign across campus, WAN, and cloud structures to support continuous operations and AI workloads effectively.

https://services.global.ntt/en-us/insights/blog/the-cios-playbook-for-business-critical-networks-in-2026

2026 and Beyond: Urgent Need for Integrated Cybersecurity Strategies in Evolving Industrial Landscape

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Integrated cybersecurity strategies are now essential in industrial environments due to increasing threats and past lessons from 2025. Organizations must enhance risk management, improve IT/OT collaboration, and adopt a proactive security approach. Nation-state actors target critical infrastructure, exploiting vulnerabilities through persistent access rather than immediate disruption. Zero trust principles must adapt to legacy systems while balancing safety. Digital transformation complicates risk management, necessitating governance across IT and OT. Unified strategies involving risk quantification and governance are critical for operational resilience in 2026.

https://industrialcyber.co/features/2026-and-beyond-urgent-need-for-integrated-cybersecurity-strategies-in-evolving-industrial-landscape/

Unlocking AI Potential: a CIO’s Roadmap for Investment

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CIOs should focus on AI as a business strategy, not a separate initiative. Successful AI investment requires a venture capital mindset, with expectations that only 10% of pilots will succeed. Implementing strong change management is essential for AI adoption, emphasizing top-down and bottom-up efforts alongside fostering AI literacy via an “AI Champions Network.” Framing AI as a partner enhances employee engagement and productivity. The CIO's role is to ensure agility, align AI efforts with core business problems, and cultivate a strategic, disciplined approach to AI investment.

https://fastcompany.co.za/fast-company/business/2025-12-14-unlocking-ai-potential-a-cios-roadmap-for-investment/

Gartner Delivers CIO Guide to Deploying Emerging Technology

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The article describes Gartner analyst Gene Alvarez’s three-step approach for CIOs evaluating emerging technologies. First, CIOs should define their organization’s risk “persona” (pioneer, fast follower, or late adopter) and ensure alignment on risk appetite across leadership. Second, they should evaluate specific technology use cases by balancing business value and feasibility, prioritizing those with high impact and realistic implementation potential, and using tools like Gartner’s Hype Cycle to inform adoption timing. Third, CIOs need to assess organizational readiness across technical, financial, vendor, managerial, and external feasibility, including workforce willingness to adopt and broader market and regulatory conditions. Alvarez recommends tools like an emerging technology radar and stresses that decisions must answer what tech to use, how to apply it, and when to deploy it, with business value as the central criterion, despite increased overall digital investment.

https://www.informationweek.com/it-strategy/gartner-delivers-cio-guide-to-deploying-emerging-technology

Tech Trends 2026: AI Comes of Age

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Shift from pilots to scale: AI is moving from experimentation to broad deployment, forcing enterprises to rethink operations, org design, and infrastructure.

Five core AI forces: Key trends include physical AI and robotics, agentic AI as a digital workforce, an AI infrastructure cost reckoning, AI-native tech orgs, and AI-driven cyber risk and defense.

Hybrid infrastructure strategies: Leading firms are mixing cloud, on-prem, and edge to control exploding AI costs and meet latency and performance needs.

New org models and roles: Tech orgs are becoming AI-native, product-led, and human–agent hybrid, with new roles and governance structures.

Signals to watch: Adjacent areas like synthetic data, neuromorphic computing, AI wearables, biometrics, and generative engine optimization may shape the next wave of AI-driven change.

https://deloitte.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/tech-trends-2026-ai-comes-of-age-5076eb16

InformationWeek CIO Corner: Dun & Bradstreet CTO Mike Manos

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Dun & Bradstreet CTO Mike Manos describes the company’s transition from a historical information-gathering business to a modern, cloud-first provider of data analytics. Manos, who joined in 2021, led a review of all business and IT operations, addressed technical debt, migrated infrastructure to the cloud, and invested in staff upskilling. He emphasized setting clear technology standards, focusing on essential needs, and assessing vendor ROI. The article offers more detail in the full interview and supplements with related industry content and resources.

https://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/informationweek-cio-corner-dun-bradstreet-cto-mike-manos

Turning AI From a Cost Into a Catalyst: Rethinking The CIO’s Role In The AI Era

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CIOs are largely focused on AI governance and safe use, but struggle to show clear financial returns from AI. The traditional cost-based IT budget model limits the ability to use technology as a strategic driver of business transformation. True value from AI requires rethinking operating models across the whole organization, not just adding AI to old processes. CIOs need to shift from cost managers to value creators, measuring ROI with new approaches and working with business leaders to treat technology as a long-term investment and growth driver.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterbendorsamuel/2025/12/03/turning-ai-from-a-cost-into-a-catalyst-rethinking-the-cios-role-in-the-ai-era/

CIO Interview: Innovation in Reworking Business Processes

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David Holton, Chief Transformation Officer at Cambridge and Counties Bank, is modernizing IT using SnapLogic's middleware to streamline manual processes in asset financing. He emphasizes the importance of integrating technology without sacrificing face-to-face customer interactions, leveraging AI for backend efficiency while maintaining personal connections with clients. Holton stresses understanding business needs before adopting AI to avoid losing customer value.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634732/CIO-interview-Innovation-in-reworking-business-processes

78% of IT Job Postings Already Require AI Skills

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AI competencies are now central to IT jobs, with 78% of postings in advanced economies requiring these skills. Most fast-growing roles involve AI, and soft skills are increasingly important. While automation may lead to significant job loss, even more positions will be created, although reskilling—not just upskilling—is essential for workers displaced by technology. Entry-level job ads are dropping in some sectors due to AI, but retiring professionals will open new opportunities for younger workers. Companies are adjusting hiring and training practices, and new entry-level roles will require more complex knowledge work. Europe is slower than English-speaking regions to invest in these workforce changes.

https://www.cio.com/article/4094687/without-ai-the-it-job-market-would-hardly-be-possible-anymore.html

Tech Predictions for 2026 and Beyond

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Extreme TLDR:

Tech predictions for 2026 highlight a shift towards AI-enhanced companionship, addressing global loneliness, especially among the elderly. Companion robots show promise in improving mental health and creating emotional connections. The developer role evolves into a “renaissance developer,” blending creativity with AI tools rather than becoming obsolete. Organizations must prepare for quantum computing's impact on security by adopting post-quantum cryptography now. Military tech innovations will rapidly transition to civilian applications, reshaping various sectors. Lastly, AI will revolutionize personalized education, providing tailored learning experiences and freeing teachers to focus on creativity and engagement, making individual attention more accessible for all students.

https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/11/tech-predictions-for-2026-and-beyond.html

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