7 challenges IT leaders will face in 2026

Today’s CIOs face increasing expectations on multiple fronts: They’re driving operational and business strategy while simultaneously leading AI initiatives and balancing related compliance and governance concerns.

Additionally, Ranjit Rajan, vice president and head of research at IDC, says CIOs will be called to justify previous investment in automation while managing related costs.

“CIOs will be tasked with creating enterprise AI value playbooks, featuring expanded ROI models to define, measure, and showcase impact across efficiency, growth, and innovation,” Rajan says.

Meanwhile, tech leaders who spent the past decade or more focused on digital transformation are now driving cultural change within their organizations. CIOs emphasize that transformation in 2026 requires a focus on people as well as technology.

Here’s how CIOs say they’re preparing to address and overcome these and other challenges in 2026.

Talent gap and training

The most often cited challenge by CIOs is a consistent and widening shortage of tech talent. Because it’s impossible to meet their objectives without the right people to execute them, tech leaders are training internally as well as exploring non-traditional paths for new hires.

In CIO’s most recent State of the CIO survey 2025, more than half the respondents said staffing and skills shortages “took time away from more strategic and innovation pursuits.” Tech leaders expect that trend to continue in 2026.

“As we look at our talent roadmap from an IT perspective, we feel like AI, cloud, and cybersecurity are the three areas that are going to be extremely pivotal to our organizational strategy,” says Josh Hamit, CIO of Altra Federal Credit Union.

Hamit said the company will address the need by bringing in specialized talent, where necessary, and helping existing staff expand their skillsets. “As an example, traditional cybersecurity professionals will need upskilling to properly assess the risks of AI and understand the different attack vectors,” he says.

Pegasystems CIO David Vidoni has had success identifying staff with a mix of technology and business skills and then pairing them with AI experts who can mentor them.

“We’ve found that business-savvy technologists with creative mindsets are best positioned to effectively apply AI to business situations with the right guidance,” Vidoni says. “After a few projects, new people can quickly become self-sufficient and make a greater impact on the organization.”

Daryl Clark, CTO of Washington Trust, says the financial services company has moved away from degree requirements and focused on demonstrated competencies. He said they’ve had luck partnering with Year Up United, a nonprofit that offers job training for young people.

“We currently have seven full-time employees in our IT department who started with us at Year Up United interns,” Clark says. “One of them is now an assistant vice president of information assurance. It’s a proven pathway for early career talent to enter technology roles, gain mentorship, and grow into future high impact contributors.”

Coordinated AI integration

CIOs say in 2026 AI must move from experimentation and pilot projects to a unified approach that shows measurable results. Specifically, tech leaders say a comprehensive AI plan should integrate data, workflows, and governance rather than relying on scattered initiatives that are more likely to fail.

By 2026, 40% of organizations will miss AI goals, IDC’s Rajan claims. Why? “Implementation complexity, fragmented tools, and poor lifecycle integration,” he says, which is prompting CIOs to increase investment in unified platforms and workflows.

“We simply cannot afford more AI investments that operate in the dark,” says Flexera CIO Conal Gallagher. “Success with AI today depends on discipline, transparency, and the ability to connect every dollar spent to a business result.”

Trevor Schulze, CIO of Genesys, argues AI pilot programs weren’t wasted — as long as they provide lessons that can be applied going forward to drive business value.

“Those early efforts gave CIOs critical insight into what it takes to build the right foundations for the next phase of AI maturity. The organizations that rapidly apply those lessons will be best positioned to capture real ROI.”

Governance for rapidly expanding AI efforts

IDC’s Rajan says that by the end of the decade organizations will see lawsuits, fines, and CIO dismissals due to disruptions from inadequate AI controls. As a result, CIOs say, governance has become an urgent concern — not an afterthought.

“The biggest challenge I’m preparing for in 2026 is scaling AI enterprise-wide without losing control,” says Barracuda CIO Siroui Mushegian. “AI requests flood in from every department. Without proper governance, organizations risk conflicting data pipelines, inconsistent architectures, and compliance gaps that undermine the entire tech stack.”

To stay on top of the requests, Mushegian created an AI council that prioritizes projects, determines business value, and ensures compliance.

“The key is building governance that encourages experimentation rather than bottlenecking it,” she says. “CIOs need frameworks that give visibility and control as they scale, especially in industries like finance and healthcare where regulatory pressures are intensifying.”

Morgan Watts, vice president of IT and business systems at cloud-based VoIP company 8×8, says AI-generated code has accelerated productivity and freed up IT teams for other important tasks such as improving user experience. But those gains come with risks.

“Leading IT organizations are adapting existing guardrails around model usage, code review, security validation, and data integrity,” Watts says. “Scaling AI without governance invites cost overruns, trust issues, and technical debt, so embedding safeguards from the beginning is essential.”

Aligning people and culture

CIOs say one of their top challenges is aligning their organization’s people and culture with the rapid pace of change. Technology, always fast-moving, is now outpacing teams’ ability to keep up. AI in particular requires staff who work responsibly and securely.

Maria Cardow, CIO of cybersecurity company LevelBlue, says organizations often mistakenly believe technology can solve anything if they just choose the right tool. This leads to a lack of attention and investment in people.

“The key is building resilient systems and resilient people,” she says. “That means investing in continuous learning, integrating security early in every project, and fostering a culture that encourages diverse thinking.”

Rishi Kaushal, CIO of digital identity and data protection services company Entrust, says he’s preparing for 2026 with a focus on cultural readiness, continuous learning, and preparing people and the tech stack for rapid AI-driven changes.

“The CIO role has moved beyond managing applications and infrastructure,” Kaushal says. “It’s now about shaping the future. As AI reshapes enterprise ecosystems, accelerating adoption without alignment risks technical debt, skills gaps, and greater cyber vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the true measure of a modern CIO isn’t how quickly we deploy new applications or AI — it’s how effectively we prepare our people and businesses for what’s next.”

Balancing cost and agility

CIOs say 2026 will see an end to unchecked spending on AI projects, where cost discipline must go hand-in-hand with strategy and innovation.

“We’re focusing on practical applications of AI that augment our workforce and streamline operations,” says Pegasystems’ Vidoni. “Every technology investment must be aligned with business goals and financial discipline.”

When modernizing applications, Vidoni argues that teams need to stay outcome-focused, phasing in improvements that directly support their goals.

“This means application modernization and cloud cost-optimization initiatives are required to stay competitive and relevant,” he says. “The challenge is to modernize and become more agile without letting costs spiral. By empowering an organization to develop applications faster and more efficiently, we can accelerate modernization efforts, respond more quickly to the pace of tech change, and maintain control over cloud expenditures.”

Tech leaders also face challenges in driving efficiency through AI while vendors are increasing prices to cover their own investments in the technology, says Mark Troller, CIO of Tangoe.

“Balancing these competing expectations — to deliver more AI-driven value, absorb rising costs, and protect customer data — will be a defining challenge for CIOs in the year ahead,” Troller says. “Complicating matters further, many of my peers in our customer base are embracing AI internally but are understandably drawing the line that their data cannot be used in training models or automation to enhance third-party services and applications they use.”

Cybersecurity

Marc Rubbinaccio, vice president of information security at Secureframe, expects a dramatic shift in the sophistication of security attacks that looks nothing like current phishing attempts.

“In 2026, we’ll see AI-powered social engineering attacks that are indistinguishable from legitimate communications,” Rubbinaccio says. “With social engineering linked to almost every successful cyberattack, threat actors are already using AI to clone voices, copy writing styles, and generate deepfake videos of executives.”

Rubbinaccio says these attacks will require adaptive, behavior-based detection and identity verification along with simulations tailored to AI-driven threats.

In the most recent State of the CIO survey, about a third of respondents said they anticipated difficulty in finding cybersecurity talent who can address modern attacks.

“We feel it’s extremely important for our team to look at training and certifications that drill down into these areas,” says Altra’s Hamit. He suggests the certifications such as ISACA Advanced in AI Security Management (AAISM) and the upcoming ISACA Advanced in AI Risk (AAIR).

Managing workload and rising demands on CIOs

Pegasystems’s Vidoni says it’s an exciting time as AI prompts CIOs to solve problems in new ways. The role requires blending strategy, business savvy, and day-to-day operations. At the same time the pace of transformation can lead to increased workload and stress.

“My approach is simple: Focus on the highest-priority initiatives that will drive better outcomes through automation, scale, and end-user experience. By automating manual, repetitive tasks, we free up our teams to focus on higher-value, more engaging work,” he says. “Ultimately, the CIO of 2026 must be a business leader first and a technologist second. The challenge is leading organizations through a cultural and operational shift — using AI not just for efficiency, but to build a more agile, intelligent, and human-centric enterprise.”