Prioritizing AI

Amid continued questions concerning the return on investment of artificial intelligence (AI) spending, corporate chief information officers (CIOs) are putting the technology at the top their priority lists. According to Morgan Stanley’s 4Q24 CIO survey, 16% of CIOs cite AI as the segment receiving the greatest budget increase in 2025. The survey also noted that security concerns remain top of mind, with 12% of CIOs planning to allocate the largest budget increase to the segment this year. Within AI, applications that enable AI to take action rather than merely answer questions are showing promise. These AI agents are working their way into existing software to automate tasks that often involve data entry or the manual process of integrating information from multiple applications.

Source: Morgan Stanley, January 2025