Workday Video: Tech Leaders on How AI is Powering the Future of IT

For years, the typical CIO had a vital yet simply defined role. But as digital transformation has swept across the business landscape, the role of the IT function has evolved from an in-house utility to a much more strategic position.

CEOs now look to the CIO as a change influencer focused on improving top-line business revenue and navigating never-ending technological change.

In this video filmed at Workday Rising EMEA in Barcelona, we spoke to IT leaders and experts to understand the future of IT and what technology leaders need to focus on today to ensure success tomorrow.

Join us to learn how leaders can uplevel to deliver the solutions, speed and scalability that a digital-first world requires.

Here are five key insights:

1. AI can help IT deliver the speed required by this evolving enterprise.

“We are now in a world where organisations look straight to technology when a challenge arises,” says Tom Seal, senior research director at IDC. “It’s an enormous opportunity for the IT function to step into a key role to help address those challenges, but with it comes pressure. There is the need to deliver solutions and speed required by business — and that might be weeks or months, rather than years.”

2. IT leaders are experiencing a period of massive change, as businesses retire decades-old systems and embrace enterprise platforms.

The business world is “moving away from custom code into the predefined code inside of these platforms,” says Rob Vatter, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Platform Services at technology consultancy Cognizant.

3. As AI moves into the mainstream, data will matter more than ever.

“The quality of information is going to become ever so more important,” notes Iain Heap, CIO of Kainos, a digital solutions provider. “If the data is not good, what you’re going to get out of it is not going to work. So having clean, consistent data and being in control of that data is going to be key.”

4. AI will dramatically shift CIOs’ responsibilities in 2024

“Generative AI is going to create an inflection point for the CIO in terms of not only how they skill their talent today, but also how they enable the future of gen AI in terms of processes,” says Jan Van Den Bremen, Technology CEO for EMEA at professional services firm Accenture.

5. CIOs must carefully manage this change to highlight the benefits of augmentation

“It’s really important for the CIO to help their employees understand that this is about ensuring they can do far more, can concentrate on the strategic areas of their job and really focus on what needs to be delivered,” says Clare Hickie, EMEA CTO at Workday.

You can catch up with all the highlights from Workday Rising EMEA here.