ChatGPT
Perplexity AITL;DR: The CIO role isn’t ending — it’s shifting toward orchestration
At the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference (IOCS) 2025 which was held in London, Xensam’s Martin Tureniec and Damien Masterson delivered a well-attended session titled “The End of the CIO? What comes next”
The title sounds dramatic, but as the audience quickly learned, the real story was not about the disappearance of the CIO, but about the transformation of the role in a world shaped by consumption based IT, SaaS sprawl, and the rapid rise of AI assistants.
Key insights:
- The traditional command-and-control CIO model cannot keep pace with consumption-based IT, SaaS sprawl and shadow AI
- Technology spend has moved outside IT — in many organizations, 50–75% of purchases now originate in business units
- When visibility disappears, cost, value and risk drift apart, creating governance gaps and escalating financial exposure
- The modern CIO must shift from gatekeeper to orchestrator — enabling clarity, embedded governance and data-driven decision support
- Organizations with easy, governed access to approved tools see lower SaaS sprawl and stronger security outcomes
Why the CIO role is under pressure
Martin opened the session by reflecting on how dramatically the IT landscape has evolved. Despite predictions many years ago that software asset management would fade away as “everything moved to subscription,” reality has taken a different path.
Today’s environments are more complex than ever, with:
- Hybrid workloads
- Mixed on-premise and cloud licensing
- Business units purchasing tools independently
- AI assistants spreading organically through organizations
- Continued vendor audits and compliance requirements
The demands on IT, procurement, and governance teams continue to grow. As Martin said, “It has never been this complex.”
This created the foundation for the session’s central question: If the old command-and-control CIO model no longer works, what replaces it?
Why technology spend has moved outside IT
Damien shared a story that illustrates the shift perfectly. A SAM consultant discovered that more than 120 people across a client organization were buying technology directly from an IT reseller. Many of them were not in technical roles at all. Marketing managers, brand leads, and finance managers were all purchasing tools independently.
This situation is no longer unusual. Across industries, more than half of technology spend now originates outside IT, a trend Gartner has validated for years.
Business units often purchase tools without considering security, compliance, architecture, or financial impact. For example, tools like Canva, Miro, or AI content platforms quietly enter the environment without passing through IT or procurement.
Martin explained that this independent buying has two sides:
- Positive: Faster adoption and quicker innovation.
- Negative: Little to no governance. No central identity management. No negotiation leverage. No visibility.
The result is mismatched costs, unknown risks, and unclear value.
When visibility disappears, problems multiply
This was a central theme of the session:
When the organization loses visibility, cost, value, and risk drift apart.
Cost increases
Business units negotiate alone, without procurement’s expertise. They miss tiered pricing and volume discounts. Overlapping subscriptions appear. Spend grows with no coordination.
Value drops
Without insight into adoption, renewals happen by habit rather than need. Tools remain unused while others explode in popularity without oversight.
Risk surges
Shadow IT has evolved into shadow AI. Martin highlighted that AI tools amplify risk because sensitive data may be fed into platforms or free trials outside of any DPA or agreements. Tools like DeepSeek were found deployed in customer environments despite the data residency concerns this introduces.
Visibility is the foundation. Without it, the CIO is permanently on the back foot.
Real Stories: SaaS sprawl and AI virality
Damien shared a case where a retail organization invested in a £5,000 per month generative AI tool designed to streamline product descriptions. It worked extremely well. Too well. Because it saved time, adoption spread informally through teams. Within a short time, the monthly cost reached £80,000, and the CIO only learned about it when finance escalated unexpected cost spikes.
The issue was not bad intent. It was speed without oversight. This is the reality CIOs face today. Consumption based IT introduces cost unpredictability and fast-moving exposure that traditional processes simply cannot keep up with.
Why the “Command-and-Control” CIO model cannot survive
Damien explained the failure of the old CIO archetype: one leader sitting at the top of every decision, acting as the final approval gate for technology. It slows the business down and becomes a bottleneck, especially when SaaS and AI tools can be purchased instantly.
The modern environment overwhelms this model.
Instead, organizations need CIOs who orchestrate rather than control.
The new model: Orchestration
Damien introduced the concept of the CIO as an orchestrator. The role shifts from gatekeeper to enabler, responsible for aligning clarity, collaboration and accountability.
Clarity
A single, trusted data source is required. Without visibility, IT cannot guide decisions or respond with authority.
Collaboration
Cross functional teams need to work from shared data. Security, procurement, infrastructure, and finance work together, not in sequence. Governance becomes part of the workflow, not a blocking step.
Accountability
Governance cannot sit only before or after technology decisions. In a consumption environment, retrospective governance means risk has already been incurred. Proactive and embedded governance is the path forward.
Martin emphasized that none of this works without a mindset shift from end users as well. The casual installation of tools or AI assistants must be replaced by awareness of risk and compliance expectations.
Visibility as the Starting Point
Martin shared real examples from Xensam customers. Even at organizations that have officially standardized on Microsoft Copilot, adoption data still shows:
- Far more ChatGPT free users
- Dozens of other AI assistants discovered
- Rapid growth of unapproved SaaS tools within weeks
Once visibility is established:
- Duplicate tools can be reduced
- Unused subscriptions can be cancelled
- Renewals can be consolidated
- Adoption programs can be implemented where needed
In the past, these processes were entirely manual. Today, many can be automated, from license re-harvesting to user notifications when they use tools outside policy.
What Successful Organizations Do Differently
Across their work with customers, Martin and Damien observed a consistent pattern:
Organizations that handle SaaS and AI sprawl the best are those that make it easy to access technology.
They offer:
- Broad software catalogs
- Quick approvals
- Single sign-on
- Clear, communicated standards
- Visible options that reduce the need for shadow tools
When users can get what they need through approved channels without friction, governance actually strengthens.
Is the CIO role ending?
Both speakers concluded firmly: No. The CIO role is more important than ever.
However, the CIO who thrives in the next decade is not the one who tries to restore command and control. It is the CIO who:
- Orchestrates teams around shared data
- Embeds governance in workflows
- Uses automation to move quickly
- Drives clarity around cost, value, and risk
- Empowers the business to adopt technology responsibly
This aligns strongly with Gartner’s own keynote message: 2026 and beyond will demand clear strategies for handling change, complexity, and the acceleration of AI driven operations.
As Damien summarized, the CIOs who learn to orchestrate will “survive and thrive.”