��dzܲԻ����’s details how the role of the CIO continues to evolve and elevate in today’s business climate and defines the CIO agenda for 2026. This definitive benchmarking survey outlines the business and technology initiatives IT leaders expect to focus on in the coming year and where they expect to be more involved.

Like in past years, we consistently see the CIO increasingly leading business and technology initiatives (83%) while also planning to have more time for strategic tasks in the future. Much of their time is currently spent on working more closely with business leaders on potential AI initiatives and learning, emerging technology, and creating a framework and organizational structure to support AI initiatives. This year’s research found that 79% of CIOs agree that they’re working more closely with line of business on AI applications.

Key takeaways:

• The CIO role continues to be elevated due to the current state of the economy, putting a new level of pressure on heads of IT. These individuals remain optimistic about tech budget growth and also anticipate technology budgets that live outside of IT to switch ownership to IT.

• CIOs have a strong educational partnership with the CEO/board of directors. In fact, 65% of line of business view the CIO as a consultant or business leader, and 43% of LOB plans to work more closely with IT when determining the business need this year.

• Throughout the upcoming year, CIOs anticipate hiring talent in technology-related areas like AI/machine learning, cybersecurity, and data science/analytics. However, CIOs also anticipate having difficulty finding appropriate skill sets in these same areas as well.

• CIOs continue to strive towards a business strategist role, and report to be spending more time aligning IT initiatives with business goals and redesigning business processes compared to last year.

• Additional investments in AI/machine learning projects and/or products/services is the #1 reason for tech budgets increasing in 2026 and 34% say that staff and skills shortages are most often forcing them to redirect their time and focus away from strategic and innovative tasks.

• Due to its perceived automation and efficiency benefits, AI is constantly being explored and implemented. 76% of CIOs anticipate their involvement in AI/machine learning will increase over the next year, and another 70% expect their involvement in Agentic AI to increase.

Regional insights

Who is the North American CIO? View this infographic.

Marketing to EMEA CIOs? View this infographic.

What’s on the APAC CIO’s agenda? Find out in this infographic.

����app���� the research

��dzܲԻ����’s 25th annual State of the CIO survey was fielded online with the objective of understanding the current parameters of the CIO role and how it may be changing over time. To be considered qualified, respondents must have identified themselves as the head of IT for their company or a division within it. Results are based on 662 qualified IT respondents, and 249 LOB responses. This study was fielded globally, with the response base being 36% North America, 20% EMEA, 42% APAC, and 1% LATAM.

Better understand the CIO audience

Explore how to sell to the CIO

It’s not always easy to sell technology. Here’s a guide for tech marketers to best understand who the CIO is, what they are focused on, and how to engage with them throughout the purchase process. View Foundry’s Selling to the CIO page.

Listen to what CIOs have to say

Our study��outlines how the CIO role continues to evolve in today’s business climate, and explores their business and tech initiatives as they navigate the impact of the current economic climate. See what they think.

How to market to CIOs around the world

Is your marketing scope region-specific? If so, it’s important to tailor your messaging – their priorities, responsibilities, and challenges may be very different in North America, EMEA or APAC. Check out these research findings.

Key takeaways:

• AI is out of the research phase – 98% of ITDMs are piloting, implementing, or upgrading AI technologies.
  
• The number one business initiative driving AI investments is improving employee productivity – with strengthening data protection and privacy through AI and improving customer support following close behind.
  
• Nearly all ITDMs (97%) report challenges when implementing new AI initiatives, with IT infrastructure/systems integration (governance, maintenance, security) being the top challenge to AI deployment this year
  
• Tech buyers are seeing the business benefits – 70% of ITDMs agree that generative AI is allowing for employees to refocus on high value-adding tasks, which is up from 58% last year.
  
• During the purchase process, tech buyers rely on LLM-based tools like Generative AI assistants, search and discovery tools, and internal/custom AI tools. The tools relied upon also vary depending on which stage of the buying process ITDMs are in.

View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with IT decision-makers.

Key takeaways:

• Relevant and consistent content is essential – 75% are more likely to consider an IT vendor who educates them through each stage of the decision process. 

• IT decision-makers are still challenged to find high-quality content, with the main reasons being too much marketing hype/buzzwords and lack of truly independent, unbiased information. Uncertainty if content is produced by a product expert or if it is AI generated does not top the list, likely because ITDMs are familiar with what AI is capable of doing.  

• Product testing/reviews/opinions, technology news articles, and product demos continue to be the top relied upon content types throughout the tech purchase process. Presentation of content is also important, as 76% of ITDMs say that they are more likely to engage with a variety of content if it is presented in an organized experience.  

• Vendors have a higher chance of gaining customers or receiving a response to outreach by understanding the importance of trust and brand reputation. More than three quarters of ITDMs say that they are more willing to exchange contact details with a company that they already have a relationship with.

• The number one rule in tech advertising – provide value. The majority (95%) of ITDMs have engaged with online advertisements, with addressing current needs, challenges or business objectives, or educated them about a technology or an important issue, increasing the likelihood of engagement.  

• Don’t miss the window – the average amount of time ITDMs think is an acceptable timeframe to receive sales follow-up after requesting information has expedited – 13 hours on average. This decreases to 9.6 hours for Gen Z and is 11.4 hours for Millennials. 

The findings and trends in this report solidify the need that tech buyers have for consistent, valuable and trustworthy content. These individuals are tasked with researching, evaluating, and implementing new technologies while shifting organizational processes and require the appropriate educational resources and relationships to do so. 

View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with tech buyers.

Additional buyer’s journey resources

Research blog

����app���� the research

��dzܲԻ����’s 12th annual was conducted among the audience of 676 IT and business decision-makers. Foundry conducted this survey online throughout December 2025 to better understand the various types and volume of content consumed throughout the purchase process for major technology products and services. It also looks to gain insight into the preferences of IT decision-makers regarding IT vendor contact and follow-up during the purchase process. All respondents had IT or management titles, with 35% based in North America, 42% in Asia/ Pacific (APAC) regions, and 22% from Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA).

Contact us to explore the results by company size, region, generation, and more differences.  

That’s why it’s crucial for your sales and marketing teams to identify and connect with these buyers at the start of their buying journey.

In this guide, we’ll show you the importance of intent data and how you can use it to:

• Build better ABM target lists
• Personalize your outreach messaging and ads
• Gain deeper insights into your campaigns success

Explore insights from to learn about the business objectives driving digital initiatives and how vendors can assist technology buyers on their path to digital success. Key takeaways from the research below:

2023 Digital Business key takeaways:

1. When asked what their top objectives are for their organization’s digital business strategy, IT leaders ranked wanting to improve employee productivity/collaboration as their top objective (51%). This is up from the eighth-ranked objective when the survey ran in 2019 and up 7 percentage points from 2021 (44%).
   

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2. When it comes to achieving their digital objectives, ITDMs say that they are further along with some of them than they expected – improving security being their #1. Just under 40% of those surveyed believe that security is the most important step for success in digital transformation.
   

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3. The areas where organizations have made the most progress in order to become a digital business are with their data security/protection strategy (only 7% have no plans – 29% have already completed, 41% are in progress, and 23% are planning), data management strategy (with only 11% having no plans), developing a business case/roadmap for overall digital strategy, technology needs assessment, and determining the metrics of success.
   

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4. In order to become a digital business, organizations are actively researching AI/ML (32%), augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) (25%), and 5G (25%) – these are the top three technologies on their organization’s radars.
   

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5. When ITDMs were asked which emerging technologies they were investing in this year, cloud-native platforms (37%), AI engineering (32%), cybersecurity mesh (31%), decision intelligence (28%), and generative AI (25%) were the top five.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with tech buyers as they move forward with their digital business initiatives.

While the research found that hybrid and remote work are here to stay, IT decision-makers expressed a handful of concerns that they will need to address with technology. Such as the ability to efficiently collaborate, employee and/or IT staff morale and burnout, and maintaining secure systems and processes. Additionally, 40% agree that it’s challenging to create an equitable and collaborative meeting experience for hybrid teams.

With that being said, IT decision-makers need support from their vendor partners in order to successfully move forward with their future of work plans. To better understand these plans, the concerns associated with them, and the technologies that your customers are seeking, view the key takeaways below and download the full executive summary.

Key takeaways for tech marketers:

1. Overall, IT decision-makers believe there has been a positive shift in the remote and hybrid work mindset due to the work from home transition.
   

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2. Organizations are planning for hybrid or remote work, with very few preparing for an office-only environment. Smaller organizations are more likely to have either an office only or remote only option without hybrid.
   

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3. Along with flexible work, tech decision-makers expect increased investment in security solutions to be a long-lasting impact due to the pandemic and remote work.
   

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4. While employees value the flexibility, there are a few concerns around hybrid/ remote work including efficient collaboration, morale and burnout, and security maintenance.
   

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5. IT decision-makers are easing these concerns with technology – when making a product selection they look for value, business need, and quality factors.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with IT decision-makers as they navigate their future of work plans. To request a meeting with a ��dzܲԻ����’s sales executive to walk through the full study, please complete the form at the right.

According to , 88% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) agree that the collection and analysis of data has the potential to fundamentally change the way their company does business over the next 1-3 years. These organizations are investing in tools such as predictive analytics, process automation, and business intelligence platforms to give them a competitive advantage in the market.

According to our latest research, close to half (46%) of IT decision-makers state that the improvement of customer insight and engagement is a key driver for these data-driven initiatives. In fact, to help them craft personalized and engaging experiences for their customers. As they do so, they’re bringing data and analytics tools to various parts of the business including product management and marketing – which is supported by the fact that 83% of respondents to the 2022 study stated that providing self-service tools to make data more accessible to business users is a top priority. However, lack of appropriate skill sets is a top challenge that IT decision-makers experience when making progress on their data strategies.

Explore insights from the study to better understand data-driven priorities, the investments ITDMs plan to make, and the challenges they’re experiencing along the way to learn how you can best assist them.

Key takeaways from the 2022 Data & Analytics study:

1. The majority of organizations have plans or have already implemented data-driven projects. More than 1/3 (36%) of organizations have already deployed projects, which is up from 28% in 2021.
   

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2. Through the use of data and analytics solutions, IT decision-makers hope to improve internal business processes, customer insight and engagement, and customer service/support.
   

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3. Organizations are making progress in some of the challenges that plagued them last year. More than half report to have a clearly defined data and analytics strategy which is up from 46% in 2021.
   

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4. Investments are continuing to be made in the data & analytics space. Organizations will spend an average of $12.3 million on data initiatives in the next year and 55% expect their budgets to increase, which is up from 44% in 2021.
   

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5. To combat challenges and pursue their data initiatives, organizations are in need of analytics training, data management, data security, data integration and business intelligence skills.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and download the full summary to better understand and engage with tech buyers as they navigate their data & analytics initiatives. To request a meeting with a ��dzܲԻ����’s sales executive to walk through the full study, please complete the form at the right.

Download this study to explore key findings, including:

• Organizations are taking a measured return to office approach – 37% have already begun, and another 47% say they will begin in the second half of 2021
• Technology organizations will support a mix of environments with more than a third (38%) saying they will support a hybrid work environment going forward
• The top concerns for organizations around the hybrid work environment are the ability to efficiently collaborate (55%) and employee and/or IT staff morale and burnout (54%).
• The top technologies that will be invested in to address these concerns include enhanced collaboration/meeting tools (56%), enhanced security controls (53%), headphones (31%), “hoteling” applications to enable employees to reserve desk space (27%) and wireless devices (25%).
• Almost half (49%) agree that the effect of the pandemic continues to accelerate companies’ digital transformation efforts.
• Digital business objectives that have increased in importance align with concerns expressed with RTO plans including increase operational efficiency (65%); improve security (65%); improve business resiliency (61%); improve customer experience (59%) and increase internal collaboration (56%).

Networking focused marketers are instrumental in ensuring tech decision-makers have the necessary tools and knowledge at the right time to make their most informative networking purchase. Compiling insight from ����app����’s buyers journey research – 2020 Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker and 2019 Customer Engagement – this networking specific research guide outlines who’s involved in the networking purchase process, the content types and sources these buyers rely on, and their likelihood to seek out a new vendor.

Key Findings:

• Only 39% of networking focused decision-makers are likely to consider a new vendor when making a quick purchase decision.
• On average, there are 22 people involved in networking purchases – 31% expect an increase in the number of IT influencers.
• The top sources of information relied upon during the networking purchase process are tech content sites, webcasts/webinars, and white papers.
• On average, 5 pieces of content are downloaded during the networking purchase process – 41% expect their content consumption to increase over the next 6-12 months.

Download the networking sample slides for additional insight. The sample slides are just a glimpse of the research – to help you better understand how to market these products and tools in today’s business climate.

Key Findings:

• Slightly more than half of security focused IT decision-makers are likely to consider a new vendor over the incumbent(s) when making a quick purchase decision.
• 80% of security focused decision-makers report that when a tech brand is known and trusted it increases the likelihood that they will be added to the short list.
• IT continues to be the primary budget holder for security purchases (82%) compared to 70% of the time for overall technology purchases.
• The top sources of information during the security purchase process are tech content sites, webcasts and webinars, and white papers.
• The majority (96%) of security-focused ITDMs have watched a tech-related video for business purposes – be sure to understand their preferred device type to watch these videos.

Download the security sample slides for additional guidance on how to best market security products and services. The sample slides are just a glimpse of the research – request a meeting with an ����app���� sales executive to walk through the full security purchase process to help you better understand how to market security products and services in today’s business climate.��

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