4 CIO trends to watch in 2026

In 2025, CIOs spent countless hours shaping AI adoption playbooks, keeping tabs on regulation shifts and reviewing the latest offerings from a fast-evolving vendor market.  

While AI owned the enterprise main stage last year, lingering questions about the technology's rapid development are landing right back on the CIO desk in 2026, as new capabilities come online and organizations look closely at the ROI metrics of previous projects.

The new year welcomes C-suite leaders with a string of trends to watch.

Executive board members will ask tech chiefs how they plan to manage the growing army of agentic AI tools, how to advance ROI and how AI regulations will affect operations. 

Amid the changes, CIOs themselves are grappling with the evolution of their own role and how training efforts should change in response to AI's swift adoption.

Here are four trends CIOs should keep an eye on this year ...