Dive Brief:
- Despite rising AI expectations, only 38% of infrastructure and operations leaders believe their existing infrastructure can handle the technology’s demands, according to a report from Netskope published last week.
- This disconnect is being exacerbated by a lack of communication between CEOs and infrastructure leaders. Two-thirds of executives leading infrastructure efforts say they are often excluded from key decision-making conversations.
- To overcome operational hurdles and support robust infrastructure, the report says senior leadership and their technology teams need better alignment and ongoing, transparent reporting.
Dive Insight:
Global demand for AI continues to climb, with governments and enterprises pouring funding into the technology amid growing hype about its potential. But these ambitions clash against the reality of infrastructure and enterprise capacity.
Only 18% of respondents are completely confident they have the team and budget to meet these expectations. One in five said they lack a clear understanding of their CEO’s or CIO’s priorities, and 37% describe their role as largely reactive.
This communication gap is widening the divide between executive aspirations and operational realities. Leaders say senior leadership tends to focus on security, visibility and cost, while showing less interest in resilience and performance; areas seen by infrastructure leaders as critical to sustaining AI-driven growth.
Reactive approaches to infrastructure were also highlighted as a key sticking point. The majority of infrastructure leaders say their organizations maintain a defensive mindset, prioritizing short-term fixes over long-term modernization.
To improve AI readiness, Netskope’s research outlines five recommendations aimed at better integrating I&O teams into operations. These include engaging earlier in planning decisions, ongoing and transparent reporting into infrastructure development and a move from reactive to proactive solutions.
Translating infrastructure decisions into business outcomes and positioning I&O teams as enablers of safe, rapid AI adoption to build trust were also highlighted.
“The way forward begins with translating infrastructure decisions into business terms so leadership can see how modernization reduces risk, improves agility, and prepares the organization for safe and effective AI adoption,” Mike Anderson, chief digital and information officer at Netskope, said in the report.
“When IT and the C-suite share this understanding, infrastructure becomes a strategic advantage rather than a constraint,” he added.
The findings come as governments ramp up infrastructure investment to meet global compute demands. Last year, President Donald Trump announced the Stargate project, a $500 billion, four-year effort to boost national AI infrastructure. The project counts tech vendors such as OpenAI, Oracle and Microsoft as its partners.
Its flagship site in Abilene, Texas, came online in September, powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Nvidia chips. More locations are planned in Ohio and New Mexico.
S&P Global has described the trend as an “insatiable AI infrastructure buildout,” with a report from the company projecting that capital expenditures by cloud service providers will rise nearly 40% this year to around $600 billion.
