Across industries, executive priorities are evolving in response to shifting macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, accelerating AI ambition and adoption, and increasing demands to become adaptive and resilient.
The strategic imperative is building adaptive, resilient organizations
Technology and digital acceleration remains the top macro trend shaping organizational strategy, while shifts in the world economic order and supply chain reconfiguration continue to intensify. Under growing regulatory, cybersecurity and data sovereignty pressures, organizations are increasingly shifting focus from disruptive transformation toward business process optimization and operational resilience.AI ambition and adoption are outpacing enterprise readiness
Organizations are rapidly advancing AI, yet measurable returns from digital transformation efforts are plateauing. Leaders increasingly recognize that organizational and foundational readiness—including modern data foundations, technology modernization and reengineered workflows—outweigh frontier ambition in realizing AI value at scale.Progress depends on expanding talent and execution capacity
Cost pressure, legacy systems and difficulty recruiting IT talent continue to limit organizations’ ability to execute transformation priorities at scale. As operational complexity increases, organizations are expanding modernization initiatives, automation efforts, and managed services programs to improve scalability, agility and execution capacity.
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Technology and digital acceleration remains the most impactful macro trend across industries, while shifts in the world economic order and market concentration continue to increase significantly year-over-year.
(% of clients rating macro trends 8+, with 10 as “very high degree of impact on the organization”)
Trust and control are reshaping industry trends, driven by AI, automation and digital acceleration. Organizations are increasingly focused on compliance, cybersecurity, resilience and operational efficiency amid growing uncertainty.
(Ranked by impact. Year-over-year change denoted as new, up ↑, down ↓, no change ▬)
Operational efficiency and growth remain the leading business priorities across industries, while mission continuity and modernization emerge as increasingly important focus areas. Organizations continue balancing transformation ambitions with rising operational, regulatory and execution pressures.
(Ranked by importance. Year-over-year change denoted as new, up ↑, down ↓, no change ▬)
Cybersecurity and AI are reshaping IT priorities, while modernization and operational efficiency remain urgent focus areas across industries. Organizations continue prioritizing resilience, modernization and stronger data governance foundations.
(Ranked by importance. Year-over-year change denoted as new, up ↑, down ↓, no change ▬)
While most organizations have digital strategies in place, many continue to struggle to achieve measurable transformation outcomes amid growing operational and execution pressures.
Organizations are rapidly advancing GenAI adoption and applying AI across core business and operational processes, yet many still struggle to quantify outcomes and scale value. Findings show that modernization, governance, process optimization and stronger business and IT alignment increasingly outweigh frontier ambition in realizing AI-driven outcomes.
Over the next two years, organizations plan investments in application modernization and cloud migration to improve agility, resilience and operational efficiency.
Over the next three years, organizations increasingly expect to rely on substantial and selective managed services models to improve scalability, resilience and execution capacity.
Banking Capital markets Corporate & transaction banking Retail banking Communications & media Energy & utilities
Central & federal government State, provincial & local government Defense & intelligence Health & life sciences Insurance
Manufacturing Retail, consumer & services Transportation & logistics
