IT Essentials: The short step from fear to excitement

Leaders are diving into new tech head first

IT Essentials: The short step from fear to excitement

Leaders remain cautious, but excitement around AI is rising.

The approach of summer marks an important time on the Computing calendar: the release of the IT Leaders 100, our annual list of the most influential and inspiring IT executives in the UK.

We're finalising the 2024 list now, but it's time for a sneak peek behind the scenes.

Every year we ask a series of questions to get a feel for the person behind the title. Some of the most revealing answers this year came from the question, ‘Which technology are you currently most excited by, and why?'

It's 2024, so of course AI featured heavily – about 10 times the number of people named the tech as any other.

Our research from earlier this year showed IT leaders were intrigued by, but cautious of, AI. It was polarising, too: some called it "the most important innovation since the smartphone," and others "the biggest bubble since the dotcom boom."

In just a few short months, opinions have shifted, and most of the IT executives we talked to discussed the AI use cases they're excited to try – everything from freeing up frontline staff to boosting biodiversity efforts.

But there are some holdouts among those who think AI is still overhyped. One said the technology is "used without care or insight"; another said it's "suffering from shameless over-selling from vendors"; and a CIO in the financial services sector called for education to help users understand the limits of gen-AI.

That echoed the sentiment at a roundtable I chaired earlier this month. Every CIO attending agreed that too few companies are training their staff to use AI (of any sort) effectively, and that skills are the major blocker to mass AI adoption.

Another blocker might be awareness. According to the Reuters Institute, only half of people across six countries had heard of ChatGPT, undoubtedly the most widely known gen-AI tool, and only 2% of people in the UK are using it daily.

Despite the hype, AI has a long way to go to become mainstream.

What about the other technologies exciting IT leaders? Data platforms rated surprisingly highly, as did blockchain (but not cryptocurrency). Several talked about tech for good initiatives like sustainability and healthcare, and some outliers even mentioned quantum computing.

What I take from this is that it's a great time to be in IT. CIOs have their pick of technologies to invest in, especially if they can resist business pressure to go all-in on AI.

You can expect to see all the insights from this year's top picks in the IT Leaders 100 2024 next month.

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