As AI increasingly goes agentic, CIOs will increasingly need to plan for ways to address this issue in the year ahead.

What happens when vendor agents start acting inside our systems?

“Many of our SaaS vendors are shipping agents, and some can make changes to our data by default,” Farrow says of another key security- and governance-related question many CIOs are facing. “For 2027, I want vendor agents held to the same standard as any other integration.”

Farrow has other questions related to the rapid rise in vendor agents, asking, “What can they touch? Can we see what they did?”

IT leaders need to ensure they can answer those types of questions, noting that California’s and Colorado’s new rules on automated decisions start in January. She wants to be able to give strong answers to those questions, stressing that “‘the vendor’s agent did it’ is not a defensible answer.”

Mieko Shibata, CIO at R&T Deposit Solutions, sees this as “the overarching question” for him as CIO.

“That question guides our investment decisions and how we allocate our team’s time,” she explains. “Our strategic direction is consistent, but each year’s agenda must balance immediate business priorities with progress toward our longer-term technology foundation. We consider both the value each investment delivers and how it contributes to the environment we are building.”

Shibata is taking a multiprong approach in her response to that overarching question.

First, she’s ensuring technology modernization turns into measurable business value and that modernization initiatives are prioritized based on that value.

She is also considering how IT responds to growth opportunities while keeping its longer-term transformation on track. “Our response is to consider the immediate commercial value alongside the longer-term technology implications. Can we reuse the capability? Will it scale? What will it take to support? Does it help simplify our environment?” she says.

And she’s thinking about how the company prepares for AI’s evolution while maintaining clear accountability for its use. “For 2027, my focus is on building a repeatable approach to evaluating and adopting AI as it evolves, with clear business benefits, appropriate controls, and accountability for the results,” she says.

Is our AI vision ambitious enough?

For Lauren Wilkinson, CIO for financial advisor services at Vanguard, AI ambition is top of mind as she develops her IT strategy for 2027.

AI strategy should accelerate the business strategy and “push leaders to reconsider what outcomes with AI are possible, rather than simply finding ways to make today’s processes faster or more efficient,” she says.

“It helps to start with an aspirational business vision, including what a few big outcomes could look like. Then you can work backward to determine where AI and technology can fundamentally change what is possible,” she explains.

In her work with financial advisors, she’s found that they’re primarily using AI to support administrative tasks such as drafting emails, conducting research, and taking meeting notes. But she sees an opportunity to build on those use cases in the upcoming year to deliver on that objective for a more ambitious AI program.

Like many CIOs, Wilkinson wants to take AI to the next level at her organization and ensuring that ambition is high enough is paramount to achieving that goal.

Do we have the talent to win in an AI-native world?

Wilkinson believes how CIOs address the AI talent question will be critical for organizational success.

“As AI continues to evolve, the skills that differentiate great technologists will also evolve, placing an even greater premium on AI expertise and deep business acumen,” she says. “CIOs should be building teams that understand the business, can identify the highest-value problems, and know how to orchestrate AI-native workflows to solve them at dramatically greater speed. The differentiator won’t simply be who has access to the best AI, but who has the people who know where and how to apply it.”

Most CIOs know this, so it is not surprising that this year’s State of the CIO survey found that AI tops the lists for both most sought-after skills and the hardest to find. As a result, CIOs will have to get creative to build up their teams’ AI know-how in the year ahead.

How should IT be reshaped to maximize value creation?

CIOs, including Shelia Anderson, EVP and chief information and digital officer at Unum Group, are also asking how they should shape IT as an organization to ensure they can deliver value to the business.

“That has been a big focus for us this year and will continue to move down that path in 2027,” she says.

The question has shaped Anderon’s work at Unum Group since she started in her role in May 2025. She has organized her IT department around end-to-end value streams and says that approach has helped her IT staff work more closely with the business and more readily identify where improvements can be made. She also has her IT organization working to better understand business processes, and has been working on building more capabilities to measure and manage AI costs as Unum seeks to transform using AI. And she’s looking at what investments and improvements are needed in IT’s foundation.

All these moves will enable the IT department to get better at value creation, Anderson says.

She plans to augment this work in the coming year by providing AI training and education for IT workers and employees throughout the company “so they know how they can drive value and find opportunities in their everyday use of AI.”

Ensuring she has the right mix of talent — meaning she has the right skills in the right seats to deliver value — will also shape the actions she takes as CIO in 2027, Anderson says.

“In 2025 and 2026 there was a lot of testing and learning, but 2027 will be a year of maturing. You’ll see more formal processes and settling in around how you’re going to leverage the skills in your organization to drive value,” she adds.