The era of experimental AI is over, according to new figures from Salesforce, with adoption skyrocketing 282% since last year and enterprises more focused than ever on scaling the tech across their organisations.

Last year, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) were still laying the groundwork, plugging data holes, tightening security, and running cautious pilot programmes, but this year, they’ve broken past that phase, spending their time aligning executives, shaping adoption strategies, and ensuring AI is embedded in everyday work.

According to Salesforce’s second annual CIO study, 61% of enterprise CIOs feel they are now ahead of their competitors on AI (versus 43% in 2024), with 42% of firms reporting full AI implementation, a leap from just 11% last year.

To keep up, CIOs have been forced to quickly adapt their skillsets, with 94% saying that successfully scaling AI takes more than technical expertise, requiring leadership, storytelling, and change management to ensure organisational adoption sticks. 

Being at the forefront of AI has increased CIO confidence, too, with 75% more sure of their role now than a year ago, and almost all (97%) agreeing they know more about AI and how to gain from it, including their ability to identify success metrics/KPIs for AI – up 33% from 2024.

Looking to the future, agentic AI is taking up most of CIOs’ time, with 96% of CIOs reporting their company either currently uses or plans to use agentic AI in the next two years, and most planning to dedicate 30% of their inflated AI budgets to deploying the technology.

The success of these plans will hinge on businesses having a seamless, unified strategy, and CIOs have fast become the linchpin.

As well as working more closely with CEOs (over any other C-suite execs), 81% of CIOs say the introduction of AI agents increases the need for them to work more closely with other groups in their organisation, like HR, finance, and sales

Customer service, however, has become the critical frontline in the race for an AI advantage, with 65% of CIOs saying they are working more closely with their CS team, more than any other group.

Recommended reading

• AI Adoption Stumbles as Report Highlights Employee-leadership Disconnect
• Gartner: Governance Key to Higher GenAI Business Value
• Global AI Governance | Who’s Leading, Who’s Lagging?

Despite their efforts to align every department around AI, only 35% of CIOs report working more closely with chief data officers, and just 23% are confident their AI investments come with baked-in data governance, raising concerns over data security, privacy, and a lack of trusted data.

“There is a great deal of hype, which is greater than several previous emerging technologies that need grounding in realistic applications within our business,” one unnamed CIO told researchers.

“A lot more education is needed to adopt and get the most out of it, or costs escalate far quicker without adding value.  There is an even greater need to ensure strategic business alignment across functions to get the most out of the data and insight potential.”

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