{"id":73151,"date":"2025-11-17T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=73151"},"modified":"2025-11-19T14:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:19:07","slug":"cio-trends-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/uk\/news\/stories\/cio-trends-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Adoption Skyrockets 282% as CIOs Enter the Era of Scale \u2014 but Trust Becomes the New Bottleneck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AI implementation has surged 282% since last year, according to Salesforce\u2019s second annual CIO study. In 2024, CIOs were still fixing data gaps, strengthening security, and running early pilots. This year, they\u2019ve broken past that phase and are scaling AI<\/a> across their organizations. The era of experimentation is over; the era of scale is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To keep up, CIOs say the skills required to lead this shift have changed. Technical expertise is still critical, but leadership, storytelling, and change management now determine whether AI adoption sticks. And this isn\u2019t preference \u2014 94% of CIOs say scaling AI is forcing them to expand their skill sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wave of enterprise adoption is also expanding the CIO\u2019s role. CIOs have long partnered with the CEO, but as AI scales, that partnership is broadening \u2014 from preparing the tech to steering organizationwide change. CIOs are now aligning executives, shaping adoption strategies, and ensuring AI is embedded in everyday work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their technical priorities have evolved as well. Last year\u2019s work centered on data cleanup, governance, security, and legacy systems. This year, CIOs are focused on building agentic workflows, integrating AI into core platforms, and scaling AI safely across the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CIOs are also spending more time with customer-facing teams \u2014 especially service \u2014 where AI agents<\/a> already show measurable impact. And consistent with last year\u2019s concerns around data and security, CIOs say they\u2019re leaning more heavily on trusted platforms and unified systems to ensure their AI investments scale securely and responsibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“CIOs are turning AI ambition into action and scaling agentic AI<\/a> in real, measurable ways,\u201d said Salesforce CIO Daniel Shmitt. \u201cEmbedding AI into the flow of work and building trust into every step helps everyone move faster and with more confidence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cus<\/strong>tomer Impact<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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