The drive to achieve competitive advantage through investing in new technologies shows no sign of slowing. 91% of IT decision-makers report budget increases this year. But, despite IT investment continuing to grow, a disturbingly large number of digital transformation projects still fail. Gartner’s 2025 CIO Survey reveals that less than half (48%) of digital initiatives meet or exceed their business targets.
This worrying statistic highlights the turning point organisations have reached in their approach to digital transformation. Replacing the headlong pursuit of the latest shiny new tech, there’s growing acknowledgement that the transformative potential of IT innovation and a firm’s ability to unlock its benefits are two very different things. Companies have started to adopt more considered, incremental strategies to mitigate risk and ensure each investment delivers tangible business value. As IT initiatives become more closely aligned with clear, measurable objectives, the challenge for IT leaders lies in unlocking investment, overcoming deployment obstacles and demonstrating clear ROI.
A more intelligent approach
AI, machine learning, large language models and automation still dominate IT roadmaps. AI has already proven its worth, empowering businesses to make better-informed decisions with unprecedented data-driven insights and forecasts.
In healthcare, AI is enhancing disease detection, drug discovery and patient treatments. Automated threat intelligence and machine learning are strengthening financial and legal operations, risk management and cybersecurity. Consumers across retail, public sector services, utilities and many other customer service interfaces are interacting with intelligent chatbots. In warehouses and manufacturing, autonomous vehicles and robots are reducing risk and accelerating workflows. In the creative industries, generative AI has been a game-changer, supporting content creation and delivering audience insights. Finally, in architecture, engineering and construction, OpenUSD simulations and digital twinning are among the technologies shaping design, informing materials selection and driving more sustainable development.
The continued rapid pace of AI development promises almost infinite possibilities to enhance business operations and modern life.
Critical concerns
However, the pace of AI adoption has slowed over recent months as business leaders’ attitudes have evolved. For every ambitious AI aspiration, there’s a potential pitfall. While AI opens the door to endless new possibilities, it also raises serious questions about control, change management and IP protection. As organisations integrate these new technologies to enhance the creative design process, they are also forced to consider how to retain creative control and the impact on workforces and existing workflows. Some AI models are trained on huge datasets, which may include proprietary or copyrighted material – this raises critical questions around originality, authorship, data ownership and IP protection.
Introducing new technologies can also expose underlying IT problems. Existing infrastructure is often revealed to be a severe limitation to innovation; one in three IT leaders identify this as their main obstacle. Data centre and network capacity are frequently swamped by immense AI processing requirements, causing latency and outages. Deployments also regularly uncover weaknesses in IT architectures that weren’t designed to share vast datasets securely, rapidly and at enterprise scale. Data management processes are also often overlooked. Under-investment in data quality, modelling and storage will result in the inability to deliver actionable AI-driven insights across the business.
Public cloud pitfalls
Most organisations have turned to cloud migration to overcome on-premise IT limitations. Unfortunately, many have fallen foul of unexpected public cloud costs, including data egress fees and price hikes following attractive entry prices. To introduce greater diversification, organisations are increasingly recognising cloud repatriation as a valuable strategy. Almost all (96%) IT leaders repatriating away from public cloud providers stated cost saving to be the main benefit. 95% reported a strengthened security posture, and 85% improved control, performance and business agility.
Cloud management requires expertise and continued focus to avoid sprawl, rising costs, complexity, and security and compliance issues. Robust governance is essential to improve visibility and control, optimise usage and manage costs. The expertise of a managed service provider delivers savings on infrastructure, upgrades, optimisation, licensing, application deployment, support and headcount.
The human factor in digital transformation
In addition to common IT infrastructure challenges, Gartner’s 2025 CIO Survey highlighted operational pitfalls firms should avoid to ensure their digital transformation programmes succeed.
Lack of internal resources is a common roadblock to AI adoption, delaying projects and leading to poor ROI. 71% of IT leaders plan to increase investment in IT staff this year to ensure their teams have the skillsets required to implement and manage new technologies in the long-term. For companies inexperienced in delivering major digital transformation projects, enlisting external help can accelerate progress and optimise results. A provider’s technical expertise and industry-specific insights can be invaluable to help avoid pitfalls, overcome new security risks and prevent over-running project timelines and budgets.
Looking beyond the IT department is also critical. Company-wide collaboration from the outset is essential for success. Organisations that encourage C-level co-ownership of digital transformation are 1.5 to 2 times more likely to enjoy greater ROI from IT innovation.
Rolling out new technologies should involve employees from across the business from the very start. Doing so helps determine use cases, understand system dependencies and required functionality, and evaluate workforce readiness.
Introducing any new technology has the potential to disrupt operations, resulting in downtime, friction and loss of internal support. Creating and communicating a phased AI roadmap is a proven strategy to help businesses navigate the change. Clear communication of a staged plan, combined with employee training, will help ensure employees embrace changes, leading to successful integrations. Demonstrating incremental improvements builds momentum, confidence and support. For example, enhancing specific workflows with AI-driven insights or automating repetitive admin tasks will highlight immediate benefits and smooth the way for future initiatives.
A more considered, structured approach
Instead of chasing every emerging tech trend, organisations are adopting a more considered, structured approach to digital transformation. Aligning IT initiatives with overarching business goals and setting clear KPIs ensures efforts remain relevant and measurable.
This more considered approach to IT innovation mitigates risk. Not only that, it also ensures that every investment contributes tangible business value. Businesses that strike the right balance between aspiration and pragmatism will unlock greater value and emerge stronger and more competitive in the process.