Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2026 Orlando: Day 2 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, taking place this week in Orlando, Florida. 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 announcing the top strategic tech trends for 2027, explaining how to develop a sound AI governance strategy, tactics CIOs can utilize to craft their brand in the AI era and highlighting the CIO’s outlook around AI, sovereignty and other top trends. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

• Gartner Says AI Risk is Rising Faster Than AI Value
• Gartner Survey Finds Only 13% of CIOs Say Their Enterprise Has Realized Significant or Transformational Value from AI
• Gartner Says 44% of CEOs Struggle to Demonstrate AI Financial Returns as Technology Becomes Central to Growth
• Gartner Identifies the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2027

Presented by Gene Alvarez, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

Technological breakthroughs are accelerating like never before. In this session, Gene Alvarez, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, highlighted the game-changing technologies every CIO should know to face the future with confidence and agility. 

• “CIOs need to safely lead their organizations into the autonomous era. To do so they must leverage the Non-Textual AI Frontier, govern the Autonomous Agent Platform, and architect Durable Agility. Gartner’s top technology trends for 2027 will help CIOs build the strategic boundaries needed to deliver trusted outcomes.”
• World Models: “World models establish a physics-first paradigm shift that allows machines to comprehend space, time and causality, enabling autonomous agents to simulate potential future states, predict outcomes and understand the consequences of their actions before execution.”
• AI Agent Identity: “By 2028, 25% of enterprise security breaches will trace back to AI agent abuse due to unmanaged machine privileges and legacy credential practices.
• Applying dynamic identity controls allows organizations to replace high-risk static credentials with dynamic, policy-controlled access.”
• Sovereign Tech: “Sovereign tech (SovTech) refers to hardware, software, databases and AI models designed to provide realistic exit strategies from critical providers while remaining perpetually available to prevent lock-in and ensure complete operational continuity.”

Learn about the remaining top strategic technology trends and explore each in more detail in the Gartner press release Gartner Identifies the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2027.

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

Presented by Svetlana Sicular, VP Analyst, Gartner

CIOs must examine agentic-AI-specific governance and risk mitigation strategies. In this session, Svetlana Sicular, VP Analyst at Gartner, examined how CIOs can create AI governance to meet the dynamic and autonomous nature of multiagent systems.

• "Set expectations that governance will iteratively evolve.”

• “Stop overlooking agentic AI risks that are accident hotspots, such as new human-AI interactions and blind spots in data and context.”

• “Start collecting evidence to prepare for external scrutiny.”

• “Build a layered guardrails stack with multiple oversight mechanisms. Tailor oversight to your level of autonomy.”

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

Presented by Rob O’Donohue, VP Analyst, Gartner

Your brand is the image you want to project; your reputation is what others actually say about you. CIOs must actively control the connection between the two, aligning what they promise with what they deliver and positioning themselves as true strategic leaders. In this session, Rob O’Donohue, VP Analyst at Gartner, shared actions and tactics CIOs can use to craft their brand and earn the reputation they want with intent. 

• “Brand and reputation are two sides of the same coin. Brand is the promise. Reputation is the proof.”
• “Gartner data shows that almost half of CIOs leave their brand to chance.”
• “An accidental brand can undermine even the most accomplished CIOs.” 
• “CIOs can follow a 4-step framework to build a strong brand and reputation:
  • Diagnose: Spot activating events and triggers. “By understanding why you were affected by a specific trigger, you can stop focusing on the reactive changes you have to make and instead focus on the strategic adjustments you choose to make.”
  • Design: “Don’t think of a designed brand as just a piece of marketing without substance. Make it a reflection of your unique capabilities and aspirations.”
  • Discover: “Uncover your actual earned reputation across the enterprise by running a reputation audit. But avoid asking only safe stakeholders. Include at least two challenging peers who have been critical of IT performance to capture your blind spots.”
  • Do: “Bring your brand to life.” 

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Rob O’Donohue by contacting Matt LoDolce at matt.lodolce@gartner.com. 

Presented by Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

CIOs are faced with designing an AI-shaped organization, deploying mature AI agents, capitalizing on next-gen enterprise apps and choosing strategic investment postures. In this session, Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, provided a clear roadmap to safely de-risk AI at scale while successfully navigating a volatile global landscape.

• “AI agents are experiencing a reality check, where the goldilocks zone of implementation is where reliability and security meet autonomy.”

• “The AI value gap is really an AI risk gap. Cost is the biggest tactical risk to scaling AI.”

• “SaaS is shifting to a headless utility and that makes it more embedded in the tech stack”

• “AI shaped organizations are focused on employees becoming managers of AI tools and agents.”

• “Physical AI will make other forms of AI legacy by 2035.”

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