CIOs struggle to balance routine IT maintenance with innovation

CIOs are caught in a cycle where maintaining legacy systems dominates their operational bandwidth. According to Fred Chagnon, a principal research director at Info-Tech, treating this maintenance as an unavoidable burden is an outdated mindset. By deploying AI-driven tactics—such as intelligent incident management, automated patching, and generative AI service desks—IT leaders can reduce manual labor and reinvest those reclaimed resources into innovation.

The firm warns against traditional cost-cutting measures, such as delaying hardware refreshes or excessive outsourcing, which often increase security risks and technical debt. Instead, Info-Tech proposes a four-step framework to identify, quantify, and mitigate the risks of AI implementation. This approach allows organizations to treat KTLO reduction as a workforce development opportunity, giving staff practical experience with automation while building a measurable portfolio of initiatives for long-term reinvestment.