By Alexis Wierenga | 4-minute read | November 06, 2023
Executive Insights from Day 1 of Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Barcelona
A massively disruptive force, generative AI poses both opportunities and threats to nearly every organization. As our relationship with AI evolves from tool to teammate, Gartner Sr Director Analyst Gabriela Vogel and Distinguished VP Analyst Mary Mesaglio explored how we shape AI and AI shapes us.
To effectively implement game-changing AI in your organization, take these three steps:
Be the executive AI guide: Lead the executive team to explore opportunities and risks.
Determine your optimal investments: Are you going to defend, extend, or upend your organization and industry position?
“If your data isn't ready for AI, then you're not ready for AI."
Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner
In order to effectively engage employees in remote and hybrid work environments, you need to understand why strategic in-person interactions boost productivity. Matt Hancocks, Gartner Sr Director Analyst, shared innovative strategies to boost collaboration and productivity when primarily or sometimes-remote employees come together.
“The question is not ‘how do we get them (back) to the office?’ It is, ‘how do we trigger a rich, immersive experience?'"
Matt Hancocks, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner
Physical colocation for synchronous work enhances collaboration by positively affecting:
Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.
Attention: The cognitive process of selectively concentrating on specific aspects of the environment.
Memory: The process of encoding, storing and retrieving information.
Allyship can be uncomfortable, embarrassing, a moment of learning and fuel for success — all that is to say, it’s not simple. CIOs and other executive leaders have an outsize opportunity to contribute to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) by acting as allies to employees and colleagues in marginalized or underrepresented groups. To help attendees become allyship champions, Gartner Sr Director Analyst Tori Paulman highlighted stories of and learnings from CIOs on their journeys to allyship.
“The CIO has more influence on a positive employee experience than the CHRO."
Tori Paulman, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner
A champion ally:
Is committed: Makes deliberate and visible choices that reflect importance.
Is affirmative: Takes intentional action to include those who have limited access.
Technology is evolving at a particularly breakneck speed with new possibilities unlocked by advancements in AI. These innovations require navigating unprecedented territory. In this session, Daryl Plummer, Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst, dives into ten predictions that represent opportunities and/or threats to help CIOs prepare their businesses.
“Generative AI makes people better and more powerful personally and professionally."
Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner
Gartner’s top strategic predictions for 2024 and beyond are:
AI makes us seem better than we are.
AI productivity shifts geopolitical balance.
The real value of neurodiversity spikes.
Energy-aware operations are a competitive advantage or a major failure risk.
GenAI supercharges legacy modernization.
Robot workers outnumber people.
Machine customers force CEOs to embrace new channels.
Malinformation is a multifront threat.
CISOs get more power.
Unions of people form to combat machines.
Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, The World’s Most Important Gathering of CIOs and IT Executives™, brings together thousands of executives every year to address the strategic needs of enterprise CIOs and their leadership teams.
Learn more about Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo and what's in store for 2024.
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Mary Mesaglio is a Distinguished Vice President, Analyst. Her research focuses on how to help global enterprises execute transformations in the real world, with all the human behavioural messiness that real-world change implies. She works with enterprises on how to create clear principes, how to scale change messages, how to be rigorous about the behavioural side of transformation and how to make change real. Mary is a frequent keynote speaker for Gartner and externally. In 2023, she co-led the creation of the opening keynote for IT Symposium Xpo, delivered in five geographies across the world. The keynote focused on Generative AI and the giant leap it represents in how humans and machines interact. Recent work includes: Lighthouse Principles: Charting a Course Through the Chaos; In an AI World, We Need Better Humans; What if your Most Human-Centric Leader is a Machine? and Why WonâÂÂt They Just Change? How Behavioral Science is the Key to Transformation. Mary is Canadian and lives in Barcelona, Spain. She is fluent in English, Spanish, French and also speaks Catalan. She is learning Japanese.
Gabriela Vogel is a Vice President Analyst in the Executive Leadership of Digital Business (ELDB) practice. Based in Paris, France, she draws on extensive experience leading global strategic business transformations to provide pragmatic guidance to executives. Gabriela specializes in C-suite dynamics, effective leadership during business change, and navigating challenging workplace environments, including corporate politics and disruptive transformations. Prior to Gartner, Gabriela served as a strategy and transformation executive, leading initiatives such as go-to-market implementation, post-merger integration, cost optimization, and operational improvement in global organizations. She also collaborated with research institutes in France and Germany to establish behavioral change management offices across various industries.
Matt Hancocks is a Senior Director, Analyst at Gartner where Dr. Hancocks covers Executive leadership, organizational development, organizational change and culture and organisation design. He has been helping CIOs adapt and change behaviors in order to support major transformational programs through a focus on leadership behavior, organizational culture, diversity initiatives and organizational change - All with a view to enhancing the human potentials of individuals, teams and the organizations to fulfilling organization purpose. He also facilitates workshops for CIOs and other leaders in relation to leadership development, organizational design, culture and change.
Tori Paulman is a Vice President Analyst who advises clients on the leadership of digital employee experience (DEX) and digital workplace strategies, the workplace experience application market, employee experience journey mapping, and strategies for successful hybrid teams. They focus on helping executives and their teams with the leadership, talent and cultural shifts needed to succeed today and in the future of work. Tori co-leads Gartner's cross functional team researching the "Future of Work" for executive leaders. In addition, Tori leads the biannual digital worker survey, now in its 6th iteration, this survey is Gartner's signature view on workers experiences and sentiment on technology used for work. Top Challenges I Help Clients Address: Boosting employee productivity & well-being via human-centricity Improving outcomes by reducing time to competency and productivity Implementing the future of hybrid work to drive talent and business outcomes Optimizing the value of workers with technology, analytics, and automation Maximize return-on-employee by developing an employee experience strategy Advising executive on best practices for experience journey mapping Tori describes their life's mission to ensure that humans have a validating, supportive, and engaging experience with technology, by meeting them where they are today and unlocking experiences that allow them to achieve their wildest goals. Years of Experience:- 2021 beginning at Gartner- 25 years in IT industry- 7 Years Financial Services- 7 Years Entertainment- 6 Years Retail- 5 Years Professional Services for Non-Profit and Higher - 1 Year Software Development, specifically BPM
Daryl Plummer is a managing vice president, chief of Research and chief Gartner Fellow. He is chief of research for cloud computing and a primary analyst covering multiple cloud topics, business process management, SOA and Web technologies. Mr. Plummer manages the Gartner Fellows Program, which is designed to allow senior analysts the opportunity to explore new research ideas and to elevate the Gartner culture and brand with clients. He is also chief of Research for emerging trends and interacts with clients on topics ranging from application development to enterprise architecture. With Gartner for 15 years, Mr. Plummer has more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining Gartner, he was division director and technology coordinator for the State of Florida’s Department of Management Services. Mr. Plummer was also data center director of the Technology Resource Center, at the time one of the largest data centers in Florida. In this capacity, he managed the introduction of statewide client/server systems and methodologies. He was instrumental in the creation of the state’s TCP/IP network and designed and implemented the Florida Communities Network and Florida’s economic Internet presence.
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