Top IT leaders (CIOs) at the world’s best-performing companies are no longer just guardians of existing IT infrastructure—they are becoming architects of growth. A new analysis by McKinsey & Company shows that organizations with the strongest financial results consistently connect business strategy with technology, invest in AI, and move away from annual planning cycles toward continuous collaboration between business and technology teams.
Technology as the foundation of business strategy
McKinsey & Company’s latest analysis, “Strategy, Speed, and AI: A New Mandate for CIOs,” notes that nearly two-thirds of top-performing companies say their CIOs are deeply involved in shaping enterprise-wide strategy. By comparison, in other organizations that figure is only 52%. This signals a clear shift in the role of technology—from a support function for operations to a core driver of competitive advantage. In the best companies, technology capability is now synonymous with strategic capability.
What’s more, AI has become the single most important investment priority. Among the fastest-growing organizations, as many as 28% plan to increase their technology budgets in 2026 by more than 10%, while only 3% of other firms declare such growth. AI is now outpacing other investment areas such as cybersecurity and infrastructure modernization, emerging as a key engine of scalable growth.
“In top-performing organizations, technology has moved from being a cost center to becoming a value creator. Artificial intelligence is no longer viewed merely as an experiment. Our research clearly shows that AI development has become a business imperative,” says Michał Miktus, Local Partner at McKinsey & Company in Poland and leader of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, in Central Europe.
From periodic to continuous planning
Market leaders are moving away from traditional annual planning cycles in favor of continuous cooperation between business and IT teams. As a result, technology strategy is no longer a document updated once a year—it becomes a dynamic process co-created on an ongoing basis. This model makes it easier to respond quickly to market changes, shortens decision-making time, and more effectively translates technological innovation into measurable business outcomes.
The most effective CIOs no longer manage technology solely through the lens of budget or cost efficiency. They treat technology investment as an integrated system connecting people, data, and business strategy. With this approach, technology doesn’t just streamline processes—it actively drives organizational growth, creates new revenue streams, and strengthens a company’s long-term resilience.
“The conclusion is clear: the future belongs to organizations where CIOs are full strategic partners to executive teams in shaping direction. Companies that can combine business vision with technological speed and intelligence at scale not only perform better today—they also prepare more effectively for the challenges of tomorrow,” emphasizes Michał Miktus of McKinsey & Company in Poland.
The CIO as a growth leader
As McKinsey & Company points out, a new generation of technology leaders will not merely manage technology—they will design entire organizations around it. Stepping into such a strategic role is easier to describe than to deliver. It will require focus on four strategic moves:
- Placing technology at the center of strategy.
- Adopting a continuous, co-creation model for strategy.
- Using AI to drive innovation.
- Redesigning the organization with AI at its core.
“The strategic mindset behind implementing these moves is crucial. Success is not about spending more—it’s about investing smarter. The most effective CIOs manage technology investments as a system linking people, data, and strategy, rather than simply as a budget that needs control. They use their technological expertise to shape business results. Most importantly, they ensure that technology fuels growth,” adds Michał Miktus.
