Forty-Two Percent of IT Leaders Believe AI to Create Biggest Impact for their Business
Flexera, the global leader in technology spend and risk management for hybrid IT, today released its annual survey findings which suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) is redefining IT leaders’ priorities. In fact, 42% of IT leaders said they believe if they could integrate AI, it would make the most difference to their organizations. When pressed about their “top tech vendors,” OpenAI ranked fourth (tied with Oracle) in its first year on the list—demonstrating the influence of AI on IT leaders.
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The Flexera 2025 IT Priorities Report surveyed 800 IT leaders from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia to determine how IT decision makers’ priorities have evolved over the past 12 months and outline their focus for next year.
“While IT leaders are facing a myriad of challenges and opportunities, artificial intelligence seems to pose the biggest potential gains in the short- and long-term,” said Conal Gallagher, CIO at Flexera. “There’s an extraordinary expense required of AI projects, creating an even greater sense of urgency to not only understand the impact of the investment but to quickly demonstrate returns that advance core business objectives. AI is not only disrupting and transforming IT—for example, creating more focus on compute resources and data quality—but planting the seeds to change the way we all work. It’s no surprise that IT is at the forefront of recognizing and ushering in this disruption, helping to be a guiding force for their organizations.”
Additional findings include:
- Fears of overspending weigh heavily on IT: According to those surveyed, the estimated average amount of overspending across cloud, software, SaaS and hardware is around 20-25%. While 15% of IT leaders say they believe their spending is fine, this is a 5-point decrease from last year, indicating some cost concerns are increasing.For those IT leaders who did report issues, 31% said they believed they were overspending on security tools, which is the top answer when compared to other technologies like cloud infrastructure (28%) or hardware (27%).
- OpenAI debuts fourth on the top tech vendor list: Although Microsoft has dominated the list of top technology vendors for the past five years—and this year was no different—OpenAI tied for the number four spot against industry stalwart Oracle. While many of the top vendors like Microsoft (63%), Google (49%), Amazon Web Services (38%) and Oracle (37%) have a large swath of services which could account for their foothold with IT leaders, the inclusion of OpenAI (37%) in the top five further indicates AI’s importance on the modern technology landscape.
- FinOps comes into focus: Despite increasing overspend concerns and a shift toward expensive AI investments, only 13% of IT leaders reported that FinOps was a priority in the last 12 months. In fact, 71% reported that cloud costs are a heavy burden on their IT budgets, and 68% said their business units are buying more SaaS and cloud than they are aware of. These findings indicate a significant need for FinOps in the months ahead, especially as AI funding is likely to be a source of extensive oversight due to the high price tag.
- IT is still optimistic about innovation: Ninety-one percent of IT leaders believe innovation is a top strategic priority for their organization, and 93% say their organization is more innovative with their IT and technology resources. While 54% say that innovation is not occurring in the right areas, 65% also believe that emerging technologies, such as AI, no longer neatly fit into traditional buckets and new teams or processes are needed to manage them.
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