Info-Tech Research Group's Best of 2026 Mid-Year Report highlights that CIOs and IT leaders are concentrating on the foundational elements required to scale artificial intelligence with confidence. The report showcases the firm's most accessed research, products, diagnostics, services, and training programs from the first half of 2026, indicating strong demand for guidance on AI execution, cybersecurity, data management, infrastructure, governance, risk, workforce readiness, and technology purchasing decisions.
AI Moves from Ambition to Execution Challenge
According to the report, artificial intelligence has transitioned from a strategic goal to an execution challenge for IT leaders. The most sought-after resources in early 2026 focus on the capabilities organizations need to scale AI responsibly, strengthen resilience, and convert technology investments into measurable business value.
As organizations embed AI more deeply into their business and IT operations, CIOs are emphasizing the fundamentals that determine whether innovation can scale effectively. The report shows heightened interest in resources related to AI implementation, information management, cybersecurity, infrastructure modernization, data strategy, enterprise risk, workforce development, and vendor evaluation. These areas collectively indicate a shift from AI exploration to the operational discipline necessary for long-term value creation.
Key Insight from Chief Research Officer
"AI is no longer on the periphery of the CIO agenda as an experiment. It is becoming integral to how organizations plan, operate, secure, and deliver value," said Gord Harrison, Chief Research Officer at Info-Tech Research Group. "The most accessed resources from the first half of 2026 show that IT leaders understand the work ahead. They are strengthening data, governance, security, infrastructure, risk, and workforce capabilities so AI can scale responsibly instead of adding complexity."
Top Research and Resources in the Report
The Best of 2026 Mid-Year Report consolidates Info-Tech's most popular new research, products, and services from the first half of the year. The findings reveal that IT leaders are prioritizing both innovation and operational readiness, with AI adoption now closely tied to data quality, cybersecurity resilience, infrastructure maturity, enterprise risk, and organizational adaptability. The report also reflects growing attention to technology buying decisions as leaders evaluate vendors, platforms, contracts, and software categories that support evolving business needs.
Featured Resources Spanning Key IT Domains
- CIO Priorities 2026: Based on over 700 survey responses, diagnostic benchmarks, and executive interviews, this annual report identifies five priorities CIOs must address to deliver measurable value in 2026, including maximizing AI investments, building proactive risk practices, strengthening data accountability, keeping pace in cybersecurity, and improving IT financial transparency.
- Security Priorities 2026: Outlines five initiatives for security leaders to build resilience in an era of AI-enabled threats, regulatory complexity, geopolitical uncertainty, and budget scrutiny. Focus areas include data resilience, compliance scaling, vendor reduction, identity-centered zero trust, and application security for the agentic AI era.
- Leverage AI for Information Management: Guides organizations in building an integrated information management strategy, identifying high-impact AI opportunities, improving information usability and reliability, and reducing risk through stronger classification and access boundaries.
- Infrastructure and Operations Priorities 2026: Helps I&O leaders rethink cloud operations, apply FinOps to AI cost management, improve observability, define AIOps use cases, and build skills for modern infrastructure environments.
- Data Priorities 2026: Outlines four priorities for CIOs and CDOs: establishing unified governance for data and AI, building data products around measurable outcomes, creating a trusted AI-ready data supply, and cultivating data champions across the organization.
- Reimagine Business Processes With an AI-First Approach: Helps IT and business leaders identify high-impact capability areas, diagnose workflow friction, and reimagine future-state processes around AI-enabled decision-making, automation, and collaboration.
- Applications Priorities 2026: Outlines four priorities for applications leaders: boosting solution delivery with AI, making AI a team member, generating contextual digital experiences, and enabling end-to-end business process automation.
- Build an Integrated Enterprise Risk Management Program: Helps leaders build a proactive ERM program by aligning risk appetite to strategic objectives, defining governance and risk taxonomies, developing risk response options, and creating a monitoring, reporting, and tooling plan.
- Design the IT Infrastructure & Operations Organization of the Future: Guides leaders in reviewing strategy, evaluating team structure, assessing skills and staffing gaps, and building a multiyear roadmap for an aligned, adaptable I&O organization.
- Defend Against Deepfake Cyberattacks: Helps CIOs, CISOs, and CSOs identify likely deepfake threat scenarios, assess exposure across people, processes, and technology, prioritize risk, and build zero trust verification practices into everyday communications.
- Develop a Plan to Overcome Your Microsoft Power Apps Challenges: Helps organizations understand their current Power Apps landscape, identify key challenges, and build a roadmap for secure and sustainable adoption.
- Identify and Respond to Credible Threats Arising From Global Uncertainty: Helps organizations scan for weak signals, assess how global uncertainties could affect strategy and operations, conduct premortem exercises, and build a roadmap for stronger foresight and dynamic response capabilities.
