Tech CIO Priorities in 2025: PwC

Welcome to the age of paradox for tech CIOs. Innovation is nonnegotiable — but so is cost discipline. Industry leaders are expected to adopt technology solutions, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud to fuel growth, while also showing how strategic spend can help deliver faster ROI. That means making tough trade-offs — deciding where to invest boldly and where to pull back — in order to create real business value. Whether you’re a CIO for a hyperscaler or a startup, this is a tightrope walk that few of your C-suite peers experience.

In tech, your role as CIO is even more nuanced. You’re often contending with strong engineering peers who see IT as a back-office function and, at the same time, working to shift the internal perception that IT is merely a cost center. In many high-growth tech firms, CIOs also face the added challenge of competing for influence with engineering leaders who view IT spend as duplicative or noncritical to core product goals.

Overcoming these perceptions requires more than cost discipline — it demands a redefinition of IT’s role in building business value. Many tech CIOs lead innovation internally as internal first adopters while also serving as visible evangelists for their products in the market. Done right, this balancing act can transform the CIO role into something far more influential: the architect of the company’s next chapter.

We see leading CIOs rewrite the playbook by investing in innovation that helps drive cost savings, reframing IT as a builder of capabilities and an enabler of value across the enterprise. This mindset shift can turn traditional cost centers into transformation engines.

Under new technology leadership, Salesforce reshaped its Business Technology function by shifting from a project-based model to a product-oriented structure — enabling greater agility, driving cross-functional collaboration and accelerating internal innovation.

CIOs who are leaning into data, cloud, AI, cybersecurity and strategic partnerships already deliver real business value and competitive advantage. Many are also helping move the engineering function from back-office support to frontline innovators — changing where teams sit on an organizational chart and reshaping the culture to position technology as a core driver of customer experience and growth.

Walking the tightrope of cost and innovation

Economic pressures are pushing tech companies to demand more impact from the same or fewer resources, and, as CIO, you’re likely feeling the squeeze but still looking to accelerate digital bets. You’re in good company. According to PwC’s May 2025 Pulse, 56% of CIOs say future-proofing their architecture is a high priority. Part of this prioritization is figuring out which technologies are driving IT cost inflation, and which are helping to deflate it.

Cybersecurity investments, expanding SaaS portfolios and AI platforms can inflate the tech stack, even as other technologies — like AI, cloud automation or FinOps tools — are designed to drive efficiencies. This paradox is at the heart of your job. As CIO, you should strategically invest and divest to identify innovations that can fund themselves.

Scoring early wins with targeted AI and automation

For CIOs trying to prove quick ROI, a smart starting point is deploying AI in narrow, high-impact areas. Internal IT support, for example, is well-suited for optimization. AI-powered helpdesk bots can reduce ticket volume and improve response times, helping automate labor-intensive tasks and boost employee satisfaction. A telecommunications company streamlined its workflow data validation, boosting employee satisfaction (ESAT) and driving more than 10% increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS). In other instances, intelligent agents can now automate updates, approvals and compliance tracking — reducing review times by up to 94%.

These aren’t just basic bots — a new generation of agentic AI systems is emerging, capable of acting autonomously, collaborating across systems and learning from feedback. CIOs are at the forefront of this shift, helping identify which processes can be reimagined by AI agents first and then deploying them responsibly. PwC’s agent OS enables enterprises to orchestrate and scale these agents effectively, and early adopters already see improvements in speed, compliance and decision-making.

Cloud cost optimization can also be a quick win. Many companies rushed into cloud adoption hoping for big savings, only to realize later that costs were spiraling (often because temporary workloads, test environments and excess capacity were never decommissioned). What should have been one-time expenses turned into ongoing operational costs. FinOps tools — AI-based financial operations platforms that monitor cloud usage and flag inefficiencies — are helping CIOs rein in wasteful spending, strengthen governance and build lasting discipline around cloud spend and consumption. Adopting multi-cloud architectures and leveraging cloud-native data warehouses to reduce vendor lock-in are other tactics that can help improve scalability and align compute spend with evolving business needs. And with these tactics and consistent controls comes the ability to reinvest in innovation.

But CIOs know they can’t assume that every AI or cloud initiative will yield savings. The key is responsible implementation — choosing projects that can offer both short-term efficiency and long-term scalability. With agentic AI on the rise, you’ll want to extend governance beyond individual tools to full systems of intelligent agents — making sure these technologies drive outcomes, not just outputs.

Overcoming roadblocks with smarter governance

Optimizing cost through technology doesn’t mean discarding governance and controls. Effective governance can actually accelerate progress. CIOs should know when to apply the brakes in order to go faster. Then there’s the matter of trust.

As you balance innovation with cost, collaborate across the C-suite to manage technology risks collectively. Salesforce, for example, has already appointed Responsible AI leads to build in governance from Day One. Rethink vendor relationships by bringing select functions back in-house and establishing cross-functional AI governance structures to help create stronger oversight — and better alignment across the business.

Take a proactive approach by forming cross-functional task forces to establish lightweight governance that balances scaling tech investments with speed and optimizing costs in the right places while also translating tech spend into strategic capital.

Even the most cost-efficient innovation won’t move the needle if the rest of the C-suite doesn’t understand its impact. Clearly communicate how IT investments help deliver tangible business results. This means quantifying savings and showing how those savings are reinvested to drive growth. Maybe that means forging ahead with continued cloud adoption to reduce on-prem applications — reducing legacy system maintenance to fund a next-gen customer analytics platform. Or automating internal processes to free up resources for product innovation.

This kind of right-sizing of the IT P&L can help unlock budget while also building trust. It gives the CIO a stronger voice in strategic conversations with the CEO, CFO and other business leaders. It also positions IT as a partner in growth, not just a cost to manage. Leading CIOs focus on outcomes — with 49% ranking efficiency improvements as a top priority. At the same time, they’re leading digital investment.

Optimizing costs while shaping the future can shift the perception of IT from a reactive support function to a transformation engine embedded in business strategy. Demonstrate value with early wins, then scale success through cross-functional collaboration. Once you show that IT can help drive smarter, faster, more efficient growth, you’re no longer just “keeping the lights on.” You’re helping script the company’s transformation agenda.

Closing the loop on cost and innovation

The ability to balance cost and innovation is a competitive advantage. The CIOs who master this art can turn pressure into performance. They take what looks like a trade-off and make it a catalyst.

In tech, where product velocity and platform scalability often define market leadership, CIOs have a distinct mandate. You’re not just optimizing costs — you’re navigating hyperscaler partnerships, integrating AI safely into production environments and combating “shadow IT” from engineering-led purchasing. Success means showing how IT strategy isn't merely a back-office roadmap but a growth model accelerator. The CIOs who lead with this clarity — balancing infrastructure efficiency with transformative ambition — aren’t just responding to tech pressure. They’re setting the pace.