Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2026 Barcelona: Day 1 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.

On Day 1 from the conference, we are highlighting the Gartner opening keynote presentation, revealing the results of Gartner’s 2026 CEO survey, and discussing how CIOs should prepare for AI governance. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

Presented by Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner Fellow and Chief of Research and Kristin Moyer, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow

As AI becomes embedded across the enterprise, value is increasing, but risk is accumulating at a much faster rate. In the Opening Keynote, Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner Fellow and Chief of Research and Kristin Moyer, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow, explained how CIOs and IT leaders can build an approach to drive good AI momentum while balancing value against compounding risk.  

• “CIOs face a dangerous imbalance: AI value is growing incrementally, while risk is accumulating exponentially.”
• “The best thing a CIO can do is to align value with risk and align safety with governance.”

• “Value and risk can’t be managed separately. They are interconnected outcomes that compound as AI adoption accelerates.”
• “Momentum accelerates outcomes, while drag slows outcomes. CIOs who outperform know how to create positive momentum and strategically introduce good drag, while reducing bad momentum and bad drag.” 

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Daryl Plummer or Kristin Moyer by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.

Presented by David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

 Technology has become inseparable from enterprise strategy as CEOs confront economic volatility, geopolitical conflict and AI industrialization. In this session, David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, outlined how CIOs can help CEOs create strategic freedom, enabling the enterprise to pursue growth and change direction faster as conditions shift.

• “44% of CEOs said it is difficult to demonstrate AI-driven financial returns to stakeholders.” 

• “75% of CEOs planned to increase technology investment, even as pressure grows to demonstrate measurable business outcomes.”

• “63% of CEOs identified radically redesigning the operating model as a top move for accelerating tangible financial returns from AI.”

• “AI must move from bolt-on to built-in, redesigning workflows and decision-making rather than simply making existing tasks faster.”

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

Presented by Nader Henein, VP Analyst, Gartner

The EU AI Act is one of a growing number of AI regulations, making it essential for organizations operating in Europe and beyond to establish a defensible AI governance strategy. In this session, Nader Henein, VP Analyst at Gartner, discussed the practical governance of the AI act and how it serves as a foundation for global AI regulatory governance.

• “The goal for AI governance is no longer regulatory compliance. It's regulatory resilience.”

• “AI adoption has outpaced traditional governance timelines, forcing organizations to compress years of governance maturity into months.”

• Use a crawl, walk, run model to discover AI, govern AI and optimize AI:

  • Crawl: In this stage, focus on employees, what tools they're using and how they're using them.

  • Walk: This stage is about turning AI discovery into distributed accountability.

• “The sooner CIOs and IT leaders discover that AI is not simply the responsibility of the central AI governance team, the sooner they'll be able to scale.

  • Run: In this phase, AI governance evolves from a control function into a decision-support function.

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