Agency tech leaders are optimistic about the government’s ‘enterprise mindset’ but caution more leader support needed to modernize IT infrastructure and achieve priorities
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the top priority for 2026 in federal technology circles. That’s the main finding in a new report – Tech Tonic: FY26 Federal CIO Forecast – by MeriTalk.
The second annual report is based on a survey and interviews with 10 chief information officers (CIOs) who lead technology for 10 different federal agencies.
Cybersecurity and risk management were the top priorities in the same report last year, which forecasted FY25. While cybersecurity is still a clear priority, it fell to third place for FY26, trailing AI and infrastructure modernization.
This year’s report did not name the CIOs included in the study. However, last year’s report did and it was a ‘who’s who” list that included CIOs from departments including Labor, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), among other prominent departments and agencies.
CIOs who answered the survey for FY26 ranked their top 10 priorities:
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning;
- Infrastructure modernization;
- Cybersecurity and risk management;
- Zero trust architecture;
- Data management and analytics;
- Applications modernization;
- Cloud computing;
- Workforce transformation;
- Digital government and citizen experiences (i.e. CX); and
- Internet of things (IoT) management.
Stay in touch by subscribing to our email newsletter.
We will never share or sell your email address.
Infrastructure modernization underpins AI and cybersecurity
The report compared these top CIO priorities with the level of support they have from leadership. CIOs told MeriTalk that AI and cybersecurity had the highest levels of leadership buy-in. Infrastructure modernization, however, is reported as low; in fact, the only priority with less support was IoT.
That AI and cybersecurity get a lion’s share of focus from leaders makes sense. AI is broadly seen as a productivity tool that will reduce costs over time. Indeed, 8 out of the 10 CIOs interviewed for this report said they are implementing “AI-driven process automation” among other efforts to lower costs.
Cybersecurity, too, is an obvious necessity. The federal government experiences tens of thousands of cyberattacks every year. The Fiscal Year 2023 FISMA Annual Report to Congress, which is the most current report we could find, says the feds fended off 32,211 attacks – a 9.9% increase over the year prior.
While modernizing IT doesn’t have the allure of AI or cybersecurity, it’s crucial to the success of virtually every other tech priority. CIOs interviewed for this report indicated that modernization is a prerequisite for effectively implementing AI.
“To modernize and to stay on par with emerging technologies [like] AI, we’re going to have to simplify our environment,” said one federal CIO in the report.
The same is true for cybersecurity. Older technology wasn’t designed with security in mind and bad actors seek out vulnerabilities to exploit. Some agencies still have technology that was deployed in the 1980s. For example, the Indian Health Service (IHS) has publicly noted they are working to modernize systems fielded in 1984.
MeriTalk summed up the crux of the matter in a blunt piece about the report: “Fix the pipes or forget the prompts.”
(Click for larger image)
CIOs are optimistic despite challenges
“Federal CIOs say budget uncertainty and staffing issues remain their top two challenges,” according to the report. The full list of “roadblocks” breaks out as follows:
- 9 of the 10 federal CIOs polled cited “budget constraints or funding uncertainty”;
- 8 of 10 said “staffing and skill gaps”;
- 6 of 10 said “legacy systems”;
- 4 of 10 said “lengthy or inflexible procurement”; and
- 3 of 10 said “change management,”
Interestingly, the work the federal government has been doing to streamline technology procurement seems to be helping. The challenge of “lengthy or inflexible procurement” fell 27% on the list of top challenges, compared to the same report last year.
Further, 9 out of 10 CIOs endorsed the “enterprise mindset” the federal government has taken towards procuring IT. Thinking like an enterprise simply means factoring in every agency that might use a tool, pooling resources to improve buying power and eliminating data silos.
That goes a long way toward overcoming decades of sprawling IT infrastructure, where every agency is still “doing their own thing,” as Intelliworx CEO Rob Hankey wrote for Fedweek previously.
Ideally, the government will include the citizens and businesses that rely on government services as well. For example, consolidating the dozen different federal permitting applications into one application that enables all stakeholders to reuse their data.
As one CIO interviewed in the report concluded: “The pace of government isn’t always fast, but it’s faster than it’s ever been. We still have our challenges, but the moves that we’ve made in six months are on pace with what we’ve seen in six years.”
The full report, along with an infographic and other resources, can be found here. MeriTalk discloses that the report was underwritten by Dell Technologies and Colortokens.
* * *
Intelliworx has been providing workflow, automated forms, financial disclosure and other solutions to the federal government for more than 20 years and serves 40+ federal government agencies. The company is a certified service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) and is FedRAMP-authorized. Contact us for a no-obligation demo.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
SaaS case study: How the Department of Veteran Affairs modernized financial disclosure
