Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2025 Barcelona: Day 2 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, taking place this week in Barcelona, Spain. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. You can read the highlights from Day 1 here.

On Day 2 from the conference, we are explaining the key areas of  autonomous business, discussing the findings of Gartner’s annual CIO & technology executive survey, exploring AI’s impact on leadership and management, and discussing how bank CIOs can maximize value from AI. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

Presented by David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

After 10 years, organizations are at various stages in their digital transformation journeys. However, AI is even disrupting these transformations. In this session, David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, explained five key areas of autonomous business.

• “71% of CEOs say that they have an inadequate operating model for AI.”

• “By 2027, 50% of CEOs will have a strategy for machine customers as part of the commercial process. 29% have a strategy now.”

• “By 2028, 40% of services (primarily B2C, but increasingly B2B) will be AI-augmented, with potential premiums for human-driven options.”

• There are 5 areas of autonomous business: 

  1. Operations are becoming increasingly self-governed by machines

  2. The augmented workforce is changing the balance of productivity

  3. AI-powered products are changing consumer expectations and value propositions

  4. Machine customers are gaining economic agency

  5. Money is now programmable creating new forms of value

• “Autonomous business is a force multiplier. Create the space for business innovation and advise the Board and your CEO of “what’s coming next.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner analyst by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com. 

Presented by Hung LeHong, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner and Daniel Sanchez-Reina, VP Analyst, Gartner

The state of technology leadership is more in flux now than it has ever been, with those at the top of their cohort able to master the art of being truly great. In this session, Hung LeHong, Distinguished VP Analyst and Daniel Sanchez-Reina, VP Analyst, Gartner, outlined CIO and technology executive’s ambitions, the path to achieve them, and the technologies involved in mastering their craft.

• “Top performing technology executives have three things in common: the ability to be agile re-aligners when context changes; the ability to behave as a “risk sentinel”, in particular vendor risks; and the ability to be a tenacious executor to avoid getting distracted from achieving financial impact -not just productivity gains.”

• “Year-over-year, EMEA CIOs and technology executives plan to increase their budget for AI and generative AI by 37% and 39% on average, even though overall IT budgets are mostly flat.” 

• “In EMEA, 45% of CIOs and technology executives plan to deploy AI agents in the next 12 months.”

• “Pivots and reprioritization, not calendar-based planning, will dominate 2026.”

• By 2030, more than 75% of European and Middle Eastern enterprises will geopatriate their virtual workloads into solutions designed to reduce geopolitical risk, up from less than 5% in 2025.

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner analyst by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com. 

Presented by Tori Paulman, VP Analyst, Gartner

Is AI going to replace you? Do you not even need entry level workers anymore because of AI? In this session, Tori Paulman, VP Analyst at Gartner, explored three ways AI will impact leadership and management.

• “60% of employees rely most on their direct manager during change, yet only half of managers feel prepared to lead their teams at the required pace.”

• “AI has flattened the knowledge hierarchy.”

• “By 2028, 75% of employees will first be trained and coached by AI when entering a new role.”

• “56% of CEOs said they will use AI to reduce layers of middle management within the next five years.”

• AI creates a new future of leadership:

  • AI as a mentor. AI is not taking entry-level jobs. Executives are.

  • AI as a reviewer. AI will augment, not replace, managers.

  • AI as a sounding board. AI turns good leaders into unstoppable powerhouses.

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner analyst by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com. 

Presented by Sophia Palmstedt, Director Advisor, Gartner

AI that isn’t integrated into banking operations will stay a”shiny object” without real business impact. In this session, Sophia Palmstedt, Director Advisor at Gartner, shared three approaches for bank CIOs to maximize value from AI.

• “More than 80% of banks globally have deployed or plan to deploy AI within the next 12 months.” 

• “Only 38% of banking CIOs believe their current AI investments will have a positive impact on financial performance. Only 8% of banking CIOs say the same for revenue generation.”

• “To maximize value from AI, bank CIOs must reinvent their approach to AI across three foundational pillars: purpose - where you apply AI for value, process - how you implement AI for value and people - how you empower teams to extract and derive value from AI.”

• “AI creates the most value when it is closest to solving problems for your customer,not the bank.” 

• “Don’t just add AI to legacy workflows – reinvent them with AI at core. This is the future of banking operations that enables real-time decisioning, continuous learning and human-AI collaboration.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner analyst by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.