Operationalising artificial intelligence (AI) beyond the hype, cyber security threats and budget constraints are among the biggest pressure points facing South African chief information officers (CIOs), according to preliminary findings from the ITWeb Brainstorm CIO Survey 2026.
The preliminary results are based on 108 valid responses from CIOs. Some 36% of the respondents classified their organisations as technology leaders, while 47% described themselves as followers and 17% as late adopters.
The findings were presented by Adrian Hinchcliffe, ITWeb editor-in-chief, at the ITWeb Brainstorm CIO Banquet 2026 at the Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff, in Johannesburg, last night.
Hinchcliffe was joined in a fireside chat by Gerald Lewis, CIO of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa; Magatho Mello, MD of the State Information Technology Agency; Sne Dlamini, group chief information and digital officer at Sasol; and Pushkar Gokhale, chief digital and information officer of MTN South Africa.
The largest share of respondents came from organisations employing between 500 and 5 000 people, accounting for 44% of the sample. A further 31% represented organisations with more than 5 000 employees.
The public sector accounted for 28% of respondents, followed by financial services at 19% and education at 8%. Some 43% of CIOs reported directly to their chief executives, while 19% reported to group CIOs.
The event brought together technology leaders to discuss the survey’s findings and the challenges facing organisations as they increase investment in AI, modernise legacy systems and try to demonstrate returns on technology spending.
“This is our 13th time running the survey,” said Hinchcliffe, noting the latest edition was conducted over just more than a month, from mid-September to mid-October, through ITWeb.
The survey found that 26% of respondents identified operationalising AI as their biggest pressure point, while 67% cited budget constraints as a major obstacle to delivering digital initiatives. Change management and organisational culture followed closely, identified by 59% of CIOs.
AI, cyber security dominate agenda
AI and automation, alongside cyber security and resilience, emerged as joint top strategic priorities, each selected by 67% of respondents.
Both priorities increased from the previous year's findings, when cyber security was identified by 63% of respondents and AI by 57%.
Enabling business model transformation ranked third, replacing cloud adoption, which occupied third position in 2025.
However, the findings reveal differences in how organisations are approaching technology. Among respondents who classified their organisations as technology leaders, AI was the leading strategic priority, followed by cyber security.
Followers prioritised cyber security ahead of AI, while late adopters placed cyber security first and legacy application modernisation second.
Despite the focus on AI, financial and organisational constraints remain significant hurdles to implementation.
Budget constraints were cited by 67% of respondents as a challenge to digital delivery, followed by change management and organisational culture at 59%.
The findings also highlighted competing business-unit demands and the difficulty of integrating legacy systems with newer technologies as additional obstacles.
Inflation impact on budgets
On budgets, 61% of respondents reported that their IT budgets had increased in the past year, although inflationary increases were the most common form of growth.
Looking ahead, 63% expect their IT budgets to increase in the coming year. However, the survey suggests less optimism about the scale of increases, with many CIOs anticipating inflationary or lower growth.
Technology leaders reported the strongest budget growth, with 67% saying their budgets had increased.
AI remained the leading technology investment priority, selected by 60% of respondents, followed by cyber security at 45%.
The survey also found that average spending on cyber security increased by 23% across the groups. Technology leaders reported a 26% increase in AI spending, compared with 12% among late adopters.
Late adopters, meanwhile, recorded the highest year-on-year cloud infrastructure spending growth, at 20%, suggesting continued investment in modernisation and cloud migration.
AI adoption gathers pace
The survey points to growing AI adoption across organisations, although deployment levels differ considerably between technology leaders and more cautious adopters.
Traditional AI, including machine learning, was deployed in production to some degree by 51% of respondents. Generative AI was deployed by 49%, while 37% reported some level of agentic AI deployment.
Only 4% said agentic AI was widely deployed, with 33% in early adoption and 32% experimenting with the technology.
The findings show technology leaders moving ahead of other organisations in deploying more advanced AI systems.
Among leaders, 10% reported wide deployment of agentic AI, compared with none among followers and late adopters.
For generative AI, employee productivity was the leading use case overall, followed by data analysis. Leaders increasingly reported using the technology for financial analysis and knowledge management.
However, the business case for agentic AI remains uncertain. Some 19% of CIOs identified a lack of a clear business case as their biggest concern about deploying the technology.
Ethical and compliance risks followed at 18%, while 16% cited security vulnerabilities, 13% costs and return on investment, and 11% loss of control and unpredictability.
The findings suggest that while organisations are experimenting with increasingly autonomous AI systems, questions about governance, security and measurable business value remain unresolved.
Digital maturity scale
The survey’s performance scorecard found that CIOs rated their organisations’ ability to demonstrate returns on technology investments at an average of 6.9 out of 10.
Technology leaders were more confident, rating their performance at 7.9, compared with 5.3 among late adopters.
Cyber security received the highest overall performance rating, averaging 7.4 out of 10 across the respondents.
The survey also found that CIOs rated technology’s contribution to operational efficiency at 7.2, above its contribution to organisational profitability, which scored 6.9.
Among late adopters, the gap was more pronounced: they rated their ability to support efficiency at 6, but their ability to translate technology into bottom-line profitability at 5.2.
Hinchcliffe said demonstrating value remained a key challenge across organisations, regardless of their digital maturity.
“Wherever CIOs and their organisations are on the digital maturity scale, from deploying agentic AI or dealing with legacy modernisations, the primary friction CIOs face today is defining a clear business case and proving the value,” he said.
Skills demand shifts
The survey found that AI was the most sought-after skill among participating organisations, with 65 of the 108 respondents identifying it as a hiring priority.
Some 74% of technology leaders and 61% of followers were actively looking for AI talent, compared with 28% of late adopters.
Data analytics and business intelligence were particularly important among followers and late adopters, reflecting their focus on improving data readiness and extracting value from existing systems.
Cyber security was the second-highest overall hiring priority.
The results suggest organisations are trying to balance investment in emerging technologies with the skills and infrastructure needed to deploy them effectively.
In concluding his presentation, Hinchcliffe said the survey highlighted common challenges across the digital maturity divide, particularly cyber security and the need to demonstrate returns on technology investment.
While technology leaders are pushing ahead with AI deployment, followers and late adopters remain focused on modernisation, cloud migration, data analytics and the foundational work required to support more advanced digital initiatives.
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