Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference 2025 Las Vegas: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference, taking place this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.

On Day 1 from the conference, we are highlighting the Gartner opening keynote, leadership vision in infrastructure and operations for 2026, and how leaders can secure endpoints. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates. 

Presented by Paul Delory, VP Analyst, and Autumn Stanish, Director Analyst, Gartner

Agentic AI is a fundamental shift for I&O, demanding new operational paradigms like cloud once did. In the opening keynote, Paul Delory, VP Analyst, and Autumn Stanish, Director Analyst at Gartner explored concrete agentic AI applications for I&O, emphasizing the need for governance to navigate this shift.

• “Cost-cutting is 52% of CIOs’ most important outcome for 2026, and they believe AI will help them achieve this.”

• “I&O leaders have to answer the call to agentic AI. The best way to start is with practical, foundational use cases in IT operations. You want to look for a narrow domain where a task requires a certain degree of complex judgment, and doesn’t have a predefined outcome.”

• “What we need is what Gartner calls continuous operations, which extends the principles of continuous integration and continuous delivery to infrastructure. It involves building a staged, fully automated delivery pipeline with built-in guardrails and test suites at each stage that makes sure everything is working, before we move on to the next stage.”

• “I&O leaders now have the second-mover advantage. All the tools they need to do continuous operations are now readily available, and most are free and open source.”

• “I&O must move the I&O identity from service provider to platform provider. Move beyond being the tech vending machine. It’s time to become the technology factory: the engine that delivers custom tooling and standardized platforms that truly build business value.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Matt LoDolce at matt.lodolce@gartner.com.

Presented by Nathan Hill, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

Heads of I&O are facing a fast-changing environment with competing priorities, new technologies, and shifting business needs. As we approach 2026, senior I&O leaders must manage differing goals and perspectives with their CIO, address the challenge of low AI adoption, and tackle ongoing technical debt. In this session, Nathan Hill, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, highlighted key issues and actions to address them, including how to align the CIO with the head of I&O and how to respond to the AI paradox within I&O.

• “The top challenge I&O leaders face is misalignment between heads of infrastructure and IT Operations and CIOs. Communication breakdown between these roles can be due to mismatch in technical language, leading to misalignment of priorities, misunderstanding of value delivered and missed opportunities to drive business outcomes together.”
• “Through 2028, heads of I&O who secure strong CIO sponsorship will be twice as likely to meet performance targets.”
• “60% of I&O leaders said they plan to increase AI use case investments and 89% are already investing.”
• “The top factors driving AI adoption include; optimizing costs, enhancing efficiency and performance and enhancing customer experience.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Matt LoDolce at matt.lodolce@gartner.com.

Presented by Eric Grenier, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

In a world full of hype and distractions, organizations need to focus on fundamentals and foundational security techniques before moving on to the latest and greatest hype. In this session, Eric Grenier, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, walked attendees through the five key things that every organization should be doing to secure their endpoints and reduce the attack surface.

• “There are five key areas that should be addressed in order to secure your endpoints: EDR implementation, application control implementation, configuration management implementation, patch management implementation, and integration of endpoint management and endpoint security.”
• “61% of security leaders have suffered a breach because of failed or misconfigured controls in the last 12 months.”
• “There are three overarching recommendations for leaders seeking to secure their endpoints:
  • Implement multilayered security on your endpoints. Pick specific security controls depending on business risk and threat exposure of devices.
  • Build cross-functional teams and processes for continuous optimization of your endpoint security controls.
  • Use outcome-driven metrics to show the value of combining the endpoint management and endpoint security teams.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Matt LoDolce at matt.lodolce@gartner.com.