We may look back at 2024 as the year when LLMs became mainstream, every enterprise SaaS added copilot or virtual assistant capabilities, and many organizations got their first taste of agentic AI. CIOs were given significant budgets to improve productivity, cost savings, and competitive advantages with gen AI. AI at Wharton reports enterprises increased their gen AI investments in 2024 by 2.3 times compared to 2023 but forecasts lower increases over the next two to five years. Experienced CIOs know there is never a blank check for transformation and innovation investments, and they expect more pressure in 2025 to deliver business value from gen AI investments. Deloitte’s State of Generative AI in the Enterprise reports nearly 70% have moved 30% or fewer of their gen AI experiments into production, and 41% of organizations have struggled to define and measure the impacts of their gen AI efforts. As gen AI heads to Gartner’s trough of disillusionment, CIOs should consider how to realign their 2025 strategies and roadmaps. CIOs feeling the pressure will likely seek more pragmatic AI applications, platform simplifications, and risk management practices that have short-term benefits while becoming force multipliers to longer-term financial returns.

Full opinion : In setting the course for a more pragmatic, AI-centric organization, CIOs should consider use cases and supporting strategies that will deliver foundational change and fundamental results.