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THE FUTURE CIO The Future CIO Are business leaders tooconfident in their AI tools? Why successful IT modernisationstarts with strategy Distributed in As organisations rush to implement the technology, unchecked optimism Modernisation leaders are defined by strong alignment with business goals,hybrid IT environments and the right external partnerships Contributors tively,AI systems require clean,consistent and high-quality data.CIOs therefore must develop clear,GDPR-compliantpolicies arounddataprivacy,collection,securityand storage. “They need to estab- Rich McEachran Tmodernisation is oftenthe capabilities of existing mainframes, A freelance journalistcovering business andtechnology forAn award-winning editor,business journalist andcontent creator, with work essential, but rarely straight-forward. Although the esca-for example, rather than attempting tomove core systems and applications to lating risks and costs of ageing systemshave elevated it to a board-level prior-ity, Ensono’s State of IT Modernisation2025 report found that only 21% ofleaders believe their organisations are‘ahead of the curve’ today. Most areeitherkeeping pace with industrystandards(58%),playing catch-up(16%) or even struggling to keep up(4%). So what’s standing in the way ofsuccess for these organisations?alternative platforms. However, thereare organisations at the other end ofthe spectrum that are still desperate togetoff the mainframe altogether.“They’vegot a cloud-first mantra–that’s the past, we need to just get ridof it,” says Presland.The majority of organisations now sitbetween these two extremes in hybridenvironments. “They’ve got some appli-cations and business functionalities that executive of Infinox, a fin-tech and trading platform,was recruiting for a senior leader-ship role, he passed on one candi-date with previous experience as aCIO because of their approach to AIW publications includingTheGuardianand Wired. Rosalyn PageAn award-winningjournalist and writer,specialising in technology,Emma WoollacottA journalist specialising inbusiness, technology andscience. She is a regular Randolph Barr, information andsecurity chief at Cequence Security,asoftware company,agrees thatorganisations must establish clear “Theyspoke almost exclusivelyabout AI,” Holmes recalls. “Theirentirevision for transformation, Technical debt is one obvious answer.Years of patchwork fixes on ageing sys-tems mean that IT teams are often toobusy keeping the lights on to focus oninnovation,with more than half ofrespondents surveyed for the reportstating that their team-members spendmost of their time maintaining day-to-day operations. Talent gaps, integrationchallenges and increasing vendor sup-port costs only compound the problem.To move beyond it and secure thethey know are better placed elsewhere,so they can evolve them and innovatecustomer experiences. But they’re alsogoing to have some ongoing mainframeworkload because it’s really critical – itholds 30 years of business transactionsand the history of everything they’vedone with a customer.”Both ends of the modernisation spec-trum are also converging towards thispragmaticcentre,with most leadersrealising“there’s a balance to be Herecalls his own experienceworking as a CIO: “One of the big-gest problems we had to deal withbefore the AI surge was enhancingour IT stack so that automation and He wanted instead a technologyleaderwho saw AI as part of abroader digital ecosystem, along-sidedata strategy,cybersecurity,automation and so on. “When every Barr advises CIOs to use ‘AI gate-ways’–centralisedplatformsthrough which to manage, governandsecure corporate tools,APIsand large language models. “Gate-ways enable CIOs to define standardrules and observe how AI is used Holmes’ experience is certainlynot unique. Recent research by Riv-erbed,an IT services company,found that businesses might be get-ting ahead of themselves when itcomes to AI. Of the 1,200 IT leaders Special projects editorIan DeeringCommercialcontent editorsLaura Bithell Design and illustrationKellie JerrardJames Lampard Measuring success with 22% of those playing catch-up.“The closer the CIO is to the actualbusiness functions – the people who associates act as a seamless extensionofthe internal team,says Presland,“rolling their sleeves up” and helping toexecute and deliver strategies.“If you don’t have the appetite or thetime to develop talent in-house or tohire it in, being able to tap into theexpertise of organisations that havepotentially worked with your competi-tors, or even in different industriesfacing similar challenges, is a big accel-erant,” he explains. “They can come inand catalyse refinement of the strat-egy,execution of the projects anddelivery of the outcomes.” Design directorTim Whitlock Commercialproduction managersAlex DatcuAudrey Davy Success will belong to thosewho can most effectively drunk on the AI gold rush”. CIOsare keen to “tell the C-suite an AI governance frameworks.The BSI researc