1. Cutting SaaS Costs
Challenge: The popular SaaS (software-as-a-service) model is easy to implement, but difficult to manage. Organizations routinely overpay up to 37% for licenses they do not need.
Action plan: FinOps or other monitoring tools can help you optimise software spend and the procurement process, allowing you to quickly reduce SaaS costs.
Trend to watch: Organizations are centralizing SaaS management and placing a premium on tools that integrate well into their existing systems. If a new tool doesn’t enhance your current stack’s cohesion, it’s worth reconsidering. A focus on integration will help IT teams reduce complexity and improve productivity.
2. Governing Autonomous AI
Challenge: AI systems with growing autonomy—often referred to as "agentic AI"— make decisions and carry out tasks, which poses new risks and can cause unpredictable issues. To ensure correct and safe implementation of these autonomous technologies, it will be necessary to hire an experienced expert or external consultant. This can be difficult as the number of experts with relevant experience is currently limited.
Action plan: Establish strong governance frameworks to set clear boundaries for AI agents. Ensure data protection, privacy, and ethical standards are baked into your AI workflows.
Trend to watch: Tools like Auto-GPT and Oracle Autonomous DB are making autonomous AI mainstream, but CIOs must prioritize data quality and ethical safeguards. Balancing innovation with oversight will be critical as AI agents gain more responsibility in the organization.
3. Data Activation
Challenge: Raw data alone offers little value for business —it’s actionable insights that drive success. However, establishing an effective workflow with data has been a challenge in recent years and this trend will continue in the coming year.
Action plan: It's important to implement systems that make data easily accessible and usable across teams. Simplifying search processes and sharing information openly helps everyone make smarter decisions across the organization.
Trend to watch: Forward-thinking companies are shifting from data collection to data activation, ensuring employees can easily locate and leverage critical information. This not only boosts productivity but also reduces time wasted searching through databases.
4. Proactive Problem Management (PPM)
Challenge: Constantly firefighting IT issues drains resources, disrupts business operations and stifles innovation.
Action plan: Transition to a proactive problem management strategy. Identify and address potential issues before they escalate into major incidents.
Trend to watch: Bringing IT and business closer together is a long-term trend, and ITSM platforms like ALVAO make this easier. They help implement Proactive Problem Management (PPM) and providing tools to measure and improve its effectiveness.
By 2026, 30% of enterprises will automate more than half of their network activities, an increase from under 10% in mid-2023. Source: Gartner
5. Cybersecurity
Challenge: With the rise of new, more sophisticated threats, such as quantum threats, AI ransomware attacks and identity breaches, the focus on security is crucial.
Action plan: Strengthen your security with a layered security approach, combining multi-factor authentication, encryption, and intrusion prevention systems. Also train staff regularly, implement Zero Trust principles, and prepare robust response plans to mitigate identity breaches.
Trend to watch: In addition to the aforementioned threats, the development of generative AI is expected to lead to sophisticated DeepFake fraud. AI-driven co-pilots will change the way Security Operations Centres (SOCs) operate. These AI tools will help teams manage large amounts of data from firewalls, system logs, vulnerability reports and threat intelligence.
6. Proactive Cloud Strategy
Challenge: The migration of organizations to the cloud was intended to save time and valuable resources. However, many of them now operate across multiple cloud providers, leading to increased complexity and rising costs. The AI boom has further driven up computing power demands increasing overall operational costs. Compounding these challenges, many organizations lack dedicated experts with the skills needed to effectively optimise cloud operations.
Action plan: Adopt a multi-cloud approach to avoid vendor lock-in and leverage the best features from each provider. Use monitoring tools and FinOps practices to manage usage and spend.
Trend to watch: With over 90 % of organizations adopting multi-cloud environments, the focus is shifting to efficient management. Organizations that implement proactive cost management strategies will better manage the financial impact and achieve a better return on their cloud investments.
“Cloud use cases continue to expand with increasing focus on distributed, hybrid, cloud-native, and multicloud environments supported by a cross-cloud framework, making the public cloud services market achieve a 21.5% growth in 2025.” Sid Nag, Vice President Analyst at Gartner
8. IT Asset Management (ITAM)
Challenge: Organisations today typically do not have a centralised asset register. Spreadsheets are still the most common method, but they are cumbersome and time-consuming to maintain. As a result, organisations often overpay for hardware and software unnecessarily and expose themselves to security risks and compliance issues with outdated records.
Action plan: Adopt ITAM solutions like ALVAO to automate asset tracking, lifecycle management and create a single source of truth for all corporate assets.
Trend to watch: Organizations are focusing on effective ITAM more than ever, and for good reason, from key business certifications like ISO, NIS2, and Cyber Essentials to ESG reporting. In addition, ITAM plays a key role in the delivery of effective customer support and the provision of vital data for the training of AI agents.
Green IT practices and energy efficient solutions are becoming priorities for organisations around the world. ITAM will play a key role in making any organisation more efficient and cost effective.
9. Breaking Down Silos
Challenge: Siloed applications create inefficiencies, lead to poor user experiences and block seamless data flow.
Action plan: Leverage APIs, iPaaS solutions or hybrid platforms to integrate systems and enable cohesive workflows across multiple systems.
Trend to watch: Integration is becoming essential for effective digital transformation. Breaking down silos ensures that all data is captured and can be transformed into immediate business value. One example is Enterprise Service Management, which has gone from being a buzzword to a real trend. At the same time, critical information is easily accessible across departments, fostering collaboration and efficiency.
10. Hyper Automation
Challenge: Although the trend towards hyper-automation has been around for some time, many companies still rely on manual labour or use legacy processes.
Action plan: Make a list of key processes that can be automated to deliver real savings in time and effort. As well as standard automation platforms such as Power Automate and Zapier, you can now use more advanced machine learning models or large language models (LLMs). For example, you can minimise potential costs by using open source models (such as the popular Llama).
Trend to watch: In the coming year, we will see the development of automation at a rapid pace. In addition to standard workflow automation, it's worth keeping an eye on the aforementioned developments in agentic AI, which have the potential to completely change the way we're used to working and using technology.
Conclusion
Taking major steps in all these areas is beyond the capabilities of most organizations. Priorities and realistic goals should be set based on the current situation. In addition to new trends, improving existing processes that already deliver business value to your organisation will play a key role. And let's not forget recruiting new talent that will ultimately help you achieve your plans and business goals should remain a top priority in the coming year, together with other critical initiatives.