CIOs face tough choices, and Brian Fruh, CIO at CTI Meeting Technology, has encountered many of them over the course of his career. He has had to determine the right trade-off between innovation and a stable environment, and between speed and security.
These challenges have become more intense with the rise of AI and cybersecurity, which have added another dimension to the trade-offs, Fruh explains. Businesses expect technology to move at unprecedented speed, while regulatory requirements, cyber threats, and operational complexity continue to grow.
Fruh notes that every stakeholder is typically optimizing for a legitimate business objective, making it challenging to make the right call. Business leaders want to move quickly to improve growth, client experience, or operational efficiency, while technology and security teams understand the underlying complexity and risks.
Investments in the IT Foundation vs. Investments in Growth
CIOs often have to make trade-offs on where their funds will go, as they rarely have enough money to pay for everything they want to pursue. Kathy Kay, executive vice president and CIO of Principal Financial Group, says she contends with the ongoing need to balance foundational investments with investments that drive growth.
Kay acknowledges that this isn’t a new challenge for IT leaders, but notes that AI and evolving risks have raised the stakes. The focus now is on making deliberate decisions about how to prioritize time, talent, and investments to strengthen the foundation while accelerating value creation and differentiation.
Innovation vs. Operational Resilience
CIOs also face trade-offs when it comes to innovation and operational resilience. Joshua Bellendir, a longtime technology executive, says every business wants to innovate, but customers and employees expect technology to work flawlessly every day.
Innovation vs. Risk Management
CIOs often must balance innovation and risk management, a task that can mean trade-offs on one side or the other, or both. Kay says balancing business impact through innovation with risk management as AI becomes embedded across more parts of the business is one of the most pressing issues she and other CIOs face.
Kay’s solution isn’t to lean all-in on one side or the other, but to hold multiple priorities at once. The same work that improves customer experience and efficiency also needs to be built with transparency, accountability, and discipline from the start.
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Speed vs. Organizational Readiness
The desire for speed can be tempered by an organization’s readiness to move fast.
Data Accessibility vs. Data Protection
CIOs must walk a tightrope between making data accessible and protecting it, particularly in the AI-hungry era. Tom Armstrong, CIO of Southern Connecticut State University, knows this from experience.
Armstrong says this isn’t an either-or decision, but rather a both, with some tweaks on either side. To help enable data availability while minimizing risk, he turned to creating reusable data products, self-contained, governed data assets that are easily discoverable.
AI Use vs. Its Cost
Executives are experiencing sticker shock with their AI costs, with a December 2025 survey from research firm IDC finding that 96% of organizations deploying generative AI and 92% implementing agentic AI reported costs higher or much higher than expected.
Marc Tanowitz, managing partner for advisory and transformation at consultancy West Monroe, says CIOs are still working through the best approach as those AI-related bills come in. Some are working to mature FinOps for AI practices, while others are developing strategies to right-size models and ensure they deliver needed results at a price point that doesn’t match or exceed the value delivered, which can be achieved by implementing a cost-benefit analysis for AI adoption.
Given the current state of AI adoption, it’s likely that CIOs will continue to face these trade-offs, and finding the right balance will be key to their success.
As Fruh notes, these challenges are longstanding, but AI and cybersecurity have intensified them, making it even more important for CIOs to make informed decisions that consider multiple factors and priorities, such as the need for scalable solutions to support business growth.
