Enterprises are increasing their investments in artificial intelligence, but many chief information officers (CIOs) say they are not fully prepared for the next wave of AI technology, according to Lenovo’s latest CIO Playbook 2026 report, which includes research from IDC.
The study surveyed 3,120 IT and business decision makers worldwide. It found that 60% of organizations are now in late-stage AI adoption, and nearly half (46%) of AI proof-of-concepts have moved into production. Organizations expect significant financial returns from these investments; some project up to $2.79 in return for every dollar spent on AI initiatives.
Despite these advances, only 27% of organizations have a comprehensive governance framework for AI. Limitations related to data quality, internal expertise, integration complexity, and organizational alignment remain challenges. As Agentic AI becomes a top priority for CIOs—surpassing generative AI—these gaps may prevent companies from realizing the full benefits of their investments. Currently, only 21% of CIOs report significant use of Agentic AI, while more than half are still piloting or exploring its use cases.
“Organizations are putting intelligence to work across the enterprise, but too many are doing so without the skills, governance, and readiness needed to scale,” said Ken Wong, President of Solutions & Services Group at Lenovo. “As AI priorities shift toward Agentic AI, the next phase will not reward experimentation – it will reward those able to operationalize AI across hybrid environments with trust and scale built in. Lenovo helps organizations move beyond pilots, unifying infrastructure, platforms, and services to turn AI ambition into real, measurable outcomes.”
Hybrid AI—a model combining public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises computing—is now favored by almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents as their primary deployment method. Business concerns such as data privacy and security drive this preference. Infrastructure efficiency is also seen as critical for success.
“CIOs are entering a decisive new phase of AI adoption, where Agentic AI and enterprise-scale inferencing are rapidly moving from experimentation to business priority,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, President of Infrastructure Solutions Group at Lenovo. “The upside is enormous—driving efficiency, automation, and productivity—but most organizations are not ready to operate AI at scale. Success depends on the right foundation: secure, energy-efficient infrastructure, flexible hybrid architectures, and governance that builds trust. At Lenovo we’re helping enterprises move beyond pilots to deliver reliable scalable AI outcomes—wherever the data lives.”
Deploying devices capable of running local AI workloads has become a leading IT investment goal for 2026 as part of an effective Hybrid AI strategy.
“AI is scaling faster than ever but CIOs are telling us the same thing: Trust and readiness remain the biggest barriers to unlocking real enterprise value. As hybrid AI becomes the architecture of choice and data sovereignty moves to the top of the board agenda organizations need absolute confidence that intelligence can extend securely from the cloud all the way to the device,” said Luca Rossi President Intelligent Devices Group Lenovo.“This year’s research makes it clear that AI devices and edge endpoints are now the frontline of enterprise AI in powering every employee securing workflows and putting intelligence exactly where work happens. When combined with the right infrastructure and services this end-to-end approach gives enterprises what they’ve been asking for: a way to innovate confidently responsibly and at scale.”
Lenovo has launched new offerings such as Lenovo Agentic AI—a solution for creating deploying managing enterprise-grade agents—and Lenovo xIQ—a suite designed to simplify operationalizing enterprise-wide artificial intelligence projects. These products aim to address issues like governance integration performance risk reduction faster time-to-value scalability leveraging proven use cases from its own library.
Additionally Lenovo’s ThinkSystem ThinkEdge servers support inference tasks enabling businesses to convert trained models into practical applications whether deployed in data centers clouds or edge environments thus bridging ambitions with tangible results.
The company’s broader vision Smarter AI for All aims at making artificial intelligence accessible across both large businesses through infrastructure solutions as well as individual users via intelligent PCs smartphones including innovations like Motorola Qira introduced at CES 2026.
