Latest news with #ForbesResearch
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Growth, Collaboration And AI: What Figma And The C-Suite Have In Common
Figma's so-far successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange points to a renewed appetite on Wall Street for tech companies after a slow stretch for initial public offerings. Stocks of Figma soared to $147 per share Thursday night before cooling and settling at $90 on Tuesday — still a big win for the San Francisco-based company and its founder considering the initial $33 share price. So what are investors so excited about? Answers may lie in Figma's growth strategy, which follows some of the same priorities C-suite executives shared in a Forbes Research survey late last year. Figma, the maker of a web-based design tool, is placing large bets on collaboration, artificial intelligence and tech as a growth factor as it plans for further expansion. The Forbes Research 2025 CxO Growth Survey polled 1,001 C-suite executives running organizations with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion. Here are their keys to growth: Technology is the new growth frontier. CxOs are no longer only prioritizing technology; they're betting on it as their No. 1 growth opportunity, cited by 39% in 2025, a significant jump from 29% last year. Collaboration is essential. Eighty-eight percent of C-suite leaders anticipate increased investment in communication and collaboration tools over the next two years. AI brings automation and agents to marketing. Figma's IPO filing highlights its deep commitment to AI. This mirrors the C-suite's strategy, which focuses on AI's ability to optimize workflows and inform decision making: For many executives, breathing life into these priorities will lead them to put AI tools into as many hands as possible: Sixty-six percent of CxOs agree that AI democratization in their organization is already leading to more innovation and better decision making. And when teams make it a point for all members to learn new tech, rather than select individuals, the results are often superior, said Kristine Francisco, vice president of content design in the Forbes Content & Design Studio. 'Collaboration has always been at the heart of great design,' she said. 'But as the survey suggests, the most innovative teams are the ones that leap into new technologies together, not in silos.' Ross Gagnon is the executive director of research in the Forbes Content & Design Studio, a multidisciplinary team that works on a variety of paid programs and events.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Finding The AI Applications To Bring The Most Value To Your Business
While those in high-ranking tech positions at companies have seen their roles shift in the last few years, the rest of the workplace is catching up. The CIO is no longer seen as a company's 'tech person,' a recent report from Forbes Research found. The person who runs technology is the one that other leaders most want to collaborate with—42% of respondents saying they want to work with the CIO, and close to the same amount want to collaborate with the CTO. More than four out of five CIOs told Forbes Research they consider themselves unifiers, reaching across different departments to advocate for innovation. CIOs are interested in adding to their enterprise tech stack, capability and security—more than half are hoping to transition to automated digital workflows in the next two years—but they're also doing more in the company as a whole. Upskilling employees is a top CIO priority for growth, the report found. More than a third say they are prioritizing training, a 12% increase from 2024. Considering the wider implementation of AI in enterprises, the focus on more training makes sense. Workers need to know how to take advantage of AI systems to make the workplace more efficient, and oftentimes make their jobs less tedious. AI training also helps ensure employees know about cybersecurity risks with these systems. And more knowledge of what AI can do could help employees think of new uses for the technology that executives might not have considered. A large proportion of CIOs—44%—also say they're aligning their initiatives with sustainability to ensure their organization is more agile and resilient. More CIOs are prioritizing sustainability than any other C-suite role, and it makes sense. AI uses more electricity than traditional technology, so CIOs need to find ways to get their company the power it needs without driving costs too high. But resilience is also of critical importance: The necessary power needs to be there to keep the company running, no matter what happens with utilities or the economy at large. Managing a company's AI transition is also an important CIO duty, and at this point, everyone in the workforce likely realizes AI is more than just something cool, and is actually a solution to improving the workplace. I talked to FICO CIO Mike Trkay about how companies can find the most value out of their AI deployments. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter. This is the published version of Forbes' CIO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief innovation officers and other technology-focused leaders. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Thursday. POLICY + REGULATIONS Donald Trump shakes hands with Apple CEO Tim Cook in the Oval Office Wednesday. Cook announced an additional $100 billion investment in manufacturing and infrastructure in the bulk of President Donald Trump's sweeping new global tariffs are effective as of today, so it makes some sense that on Wednesday, Apple announced a new $100 billion investment in the U.S. to enhance its domestic manufacturing capacity and capabilities. The new investment, which is on top of the $500 billion commitment CEO Tim Cook announced earlier this year, would expand the company's American Manufacturing Program, which is dedicated to bringing more of the tech giant's supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the U.S. The investment, however, is not just for Apple. Much of the money will go to expanding and broadening partnerships with U.S. companies to manufacture the precision components of Apple products. According to Apple, the investments that it's making over the next four years include an advanced smartphone glass production line with Corning in Kentucky, a new multi-year agreement with Texas laser maker Coherent, and partnerships for chip and semiconductor manufacturing with GlobalWafers America, TSMC, Texas Instruments, Applied Materials, Samsung, Amkor, Broadcom and GlobalFoundries. Apple isn't the only company looking more to U.S.-made chips and semiconductors. As Trump appeared with Cook on Wednesday to announce the new investment, the president announced a new tariff: 100% on imports of foreign semiconductors. He could unveil the rules underlying this tariff as soon as next week, but the president said there will be an exception: Companies who have announced they are building semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the U.S. will be exempt. The New York Times reports that this tariff could be Trump's way of replacing the subsidies for building chips manufacturing facilities in the U.S. that were put in place through the CHIPS Act during the Biden Administration. CYBERSECURITY This week is Black Hat USA 2025 in Las Vegas, so it can be expected that there's a lot of talk going on about how AI can assist in cybersecurity. As the conference opened on Tuesday, Forbes senior contributor Tony Bradley wrote that many attendees were ready to talk about AI—and more specifically, AI agents—to find vulnerabilities, detect potential threats and remedy breaches. Nearly 30 sessions at this year's conference are focused on AI, machine learning or data science, including a full-day AI Summit. A joint keynote featuring Bailey Bickley, the NSA Cybersecurity Collaboration Center's chief of industrial base defense, and AI-powered cybersecurity company CEO and cofounder Snehal Antani spotlights one of the biggest threats to large companies: the use of smaller contractors with less rigorous cybersecurity that could provide backdoor access to the bigger company's system, Bradley writes. This means that there needs to be more attention paid to cybersecurity throughout the ecosystem that companies work with—either through automated tests of a full environment, like runs, or at the very least by extending the top-security mindset to all contractors a company works with. The way that bad actors are accessing systems isn't necessarily all that high tech, though. Forbes senior contributor Davey Winder writes that the FBI has issued a new warning: Don't reset employees' passwords. Hacker organization Scattered Spider and others have been gaining access to company systems by impersonating employees and executives and contacting the IT department or help desk staff to reset their passwords. The FBI warns staff not to make the password change, even if the person calling can provide preset identifying information meant to verify their identity. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Illustration by Fernando Capeto and Samantha Lee via Google Gemini AI While there's a lot of enthusiasm about the possibilities of AI, there's also plenty of fear among younger generations. Forbes contributor Victoria Feng writes about students dropping out of top colleges to work for groups and companies with the purpose of reining in AI. Some experts say that AGI—artificial general intelligence, when a computer has the same reasoning power as a human—is about a decade away, while OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman has predicted we'll get there by 2029. The young dropouts are operating on the most optimistic projection for AGI's arrival, as well as the most pessimistic ideas of its potential impact to humanity. 'I was concerned I might not be alive to graduate because of AGI,' former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Alice Blair told Feng. 'I think in a large majority of the scenarios, because of the way we are working towards AGI, we get human extinction.' Blair has lined up a contract job as a technical writer at the Center for AI Safety, and she doesn't plan on returning to MIT. Tech experts say that it's noble for young people to want to pursue the field of AI safety, but they should stay in college. A degree often paves the way for better-paying jobs and greater opportunities down the line. 'There will be other (and probably better) startup opportunities, but you can't get your college years back,' Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham posted on X in July. BITS + BYTES FICO's CIO On How To Get Business Value From AI FICO CIO Mike Trkay. FICO, Getty More than two years after ChatGPT first made the world excited about the potential of AI, companies are coming down to earth about what generative AI can really do for them. Credit scoring institution FICO was using AI before it became the cool new thing. The company uses AI to improve services both internally and for customers. I talked to CIO Mike Trkay, who's deeply involved in how AI and other tech platforms work with customers, about how companies can determine their best uses of AI technology. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. What would you say is the best way for a CIO to determine what AI can bring to a company as its highest and best function? Trkay: My initial way of introducing it to my team has been focused more on: How do I extend key capabilities I'm looking for within my organization to a broader portion of my organization? I don't look at it and go, 'Ooh, how do I replace software engineers with AI?' I actually say, 'How do I take a larger number of my technically oriented staff and allow them to do developer-oriented tasks?' Things that maybe their individual experience hasn't been based on yet, but they have a technical foundation that AI becomes assistive, helps get them further down a path and extend into a higher level of functions than what they've traditionally been able to do. It's now [been about] 24 months on this AI hype cycle. There was this throw-the-spaghetti-against-the-wall approach that a lot of companies started taking, where they were doing pilots and proof of concepts, and any sort of opportunity they saw, they took a swing at it. But one of the hardest parts about the utilization of AI is the operationalization of it—not just taking it from something cool and whizzbang that you're doing on your desktop, but actually making it part of the operational backbone and character of an enterprise. To really make it enterprise class and enterprise worthy. There's a lot of things that go into that. It has to do with making sure that it's robust, resilient, reliable, safe against a wide range of conditions. Making sure it's explainable, ethical, auditable. Then there's also how to make sure I'm doing it at scale, and being able to handle the throughput that I need to. In that initial phase, what I saw industrywide is lots of pilots, lots of interest, lots of money thrown at all of that activity—but very little of it ending up returning value to the business because they couldn't get it operationalized in a material or substantial way that fundamentally changed the way they were working. I do think that's starting to pivot. I see and hear more and more from peers and colleagues. They've created a more focused portfolio of AI initiatives that, rather than starting with the demo and the 'Isn't this cool?', they're starting with the business objective and value that they're trying to extract. They're working their way back into what are the AI tools, technologies, approaches that help us address that and bring some of that value to the business. I don't know if that really has resulted in change in investment in AI in terms of absolute dollars, but I do think it's resulted in a change of investment where it's become more focused dollars on a smaller subset of tools and technologies, or applications or use cases where they're trying to get it applied. Is there anything that CIOs should look for when they are evaluating potential AI platforms and applications? There's two types of data that I'm concerned about. One is the type of data that we're managing for our customers, which tends to be privileged data—PII or PCI data—just data in general. How do you ensure that there's no risk of data leakage? A lot of times when you are going to publicly available AI models, people don't realize it's capturing that data, utilizing [it] to further refine and train itself to kind of not only personalize its responses to you, but also to further get feedback on, 'Am I giving the right sort of answers,' and utilizing that for the next iteration of the model. [You need to be] making sure that you're [trying out AI] in an isolated, data-fenced, and generically secure way. We're also a company. Our software is our IP. Even when looking at things like assistive development, if I'm providing my source code over to something to say, 'Hey, help me work on this,' I'm now exposing my IP. This still falls into sensitive or privileged data. Most CIOs should bring that perspective to the table because they're used to understanding digital loss prevention from data leaks. Then, there's a lot of risk around responsible AI stuff. A lot of the tools tend to hallucinate. They can give you kind of false answers. So anything that's critical, even if we're utilizing AI today, still a lot of times we have a human-in-the-loop approach to what we do. AI is making a suggestion. It's doing some work, but in a lot of cases, especially when the blast radius of impact is large, there's a human in the loop that is reviewing and being the approver, to make sure there isn't a hallucination or AI doing something a little bit off the mark that would create a risk for us and how we operate. AI adoption that I've seen within the industry, [you need to determine] truly how do you operationalize it? You need to be thinking about that from day one. How do I do this at scale? How do I do this low latency? Not just think about it as a pilot, because there's a lot of stuff that you can see when it becomes lost dollars. This is where, as the CIO, you're wearing your financial management hat, going, 'How do I make sure that I'm spending our money wisely?' What advice would you give to a CIO who, at this point, is trying to quickly find the right thing to do with AI? Start with the business value that you're trying to get out of it. Don't start with the technology. Don't start with the contractor. Don't start with the tool. Understand what is the agent, the action, the activity, the task that allows for that business value. And then you work your way back, because the more specific that you can get about what you are trying to get out of AI, the better it's going to lead you to what is the right tool for the right fit. There's a lot of things that can do a lot of things, but they're 80% or 70% okay at stuff. They're not great with anything. To get real business value, [you need to start having] a little bit more focus. What are the [platforms] that are not just good at a lot of stuff, but great at doing incident correlation, predictive root cause analysis, fraud detection, decisioning. Pick tools that are made for purpose to the specific tasks that you're looking to get value out of. COMINGS + GOINGS Health insurer and care provider Highmark Health named Alistair Erskine , MD, MBA, as its first chief information digital officer. Dr. Erskine joins the firm from Emory Healthcare and Emory University, where he was senior vice president, chief information officer and chief digital officer. named , MD, MBA, as its first chief information digital officer. Dr. Erskine joins the firm from Emory Healthcare and Emory University, where he was senior vice president, chief information officer and chief digital officer. AAA insurance affiliate CSAA Insurance Group appointed Bradley Lontz as its new executive vice president and chief information officer. Lontz most recently worked at CopperPoint Insurance, where he served as chief information officer. appointed as its new executive vice president and chief information officer. Lontz most recently worked at CopperPoint Insurance, where he served as chief information officer. Customer communications platform Weave promoted Abhi Sharma to its chief technology officer role. Sharma previously led research and development within Twilio's communications business, and has also worked in leadership at Salesforce, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft. STRATEGIES + ADVICE Vibe coding is making it so future programmers won't have to sit and write code all day. However, people will still be needed to make AI-written code work. Here's why computational thinking is becoming the new programming. Every leader wants to be a success. Here are nine characteristics that some of the best leaders in the business world have in common, and how you can emulate them. QUIZ In the U.K., a new law requires people who want to access adult content online to submit to age verification, often through pictures taken on a webcam. But intrepid teens have found a way to get around it. What is it? A. Pulling a hoodie over their face B. Using an image of a video game character C. Writing their date of birth as February 29, 2000 D. Putting a medical mask over their nose and mouth See if you got the answer right here.
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
What Do Companies Look For In Cloud Services? It's All About Cost
Even though cloud solutions promise to help companies innovate more quickly and adopt new strategies, executives ranked innovation and revenue growth as only their fourth most important goals (tie) when migrating to the cloud. Getty Creative By Tom Barkley When companies decide to take their data and apps to the cloud, one goal stands out among the others. Optimizing cost is the No. 1 priority for executives looking to undertake a cloud migration, according to the inaugural Forbes Research Enterprise Technology Purchasing Survey , which was released earlier this year. 'Cost is not just a metric — it's a lens through which every cloud decision is viewed,' says Mayank Bhargava, vice president of consulting services at CGI, which helps companies with cloud transformations. 'Successful organizations treat cost as a continuous design principle, not a one-time negotiation.' With cloud solutions promising to help companies innovate more quickly and adopt new strategies, it may come as a surprise that innovation and revenue growth were cited by only 9% of executives — appearing at the bottom of the same list. Forbes Research Enterprise Technology Purchasing Survey Ahead, explore additional findings from the October-November survey, which polled 1,000 business leaders involved in technology decisions about their demands and opinions of cloud vendors. Looking For Value In The Cloud When shopping for cloud solutions, companies want to ensure they can keep data and storage demand under control, especially with AI requiring heavy amounts of compute. Eighty-six percent of executives said cost-effectiveness is an important factor when considering which cloud solution to acquire. Getting their money's worth was considered more important than other goal choices: getting post-sales support, contract flexibility, scalability and vendor trustworthiness, among them. 'Buyers want assurance that every dollar spent yields business value,' says Bhargava. While executives put vendor reputation further down the list of priorities when shopping for cloud services, that doesn't mean sellers should be complacent. When asked what they liked about their cloud service, executives ranked vendor support last, with just over half expressing satisfaction. This suggests an opportunity for cloud providers that can take steps to differentiate in this area. Forbes Research Enterprise Technology Purchasing Survey Tom Barkley is an editor in the Content & Design Studio at Forbes. The studio is a multidisciplinary team that works on variety of content, event and marketing products.
Forbes
29-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Expanding CIO Role: Insights From The Forbes Research 2025 CxO Growth Survey
Executives point to the CIO as the C-suite leader with whom they'd most likely to collaborate — more ... More than any other CxO role. Most chief information officers agree: Their role is evolving beyond technology oversight into one of enterprise-wide transformation. According to new Forbes Research, 82% of CIOs* say they're increasingly acting as unifiers, reaching across silos to advocate for innovation across departments. That could be one reason why executives list the CIO — more than any other C-suite role — as the leader they'd most like to collaborate with in the year ahead. These insights come from the Forbes Research 2025 CxO Growth Survey, which polled more than 1,000 global C-Suite executives, including 200 CIOs. Its results suggest that the CIO remit touches on talent development, customer experience and sustainability — in addition to keeping the enterprise secure and on the technological cutting edge. What's on their agenda in 2025? Key findings from CIO responses show: 1. Workforce development is a strategic priority. CIOs are more likely than any other CxO to list upskilling employees as a growth factor they're prioritizing over the next two years (36%). This marks an increase from 2024, when only 24% of CIOs flagged upskilling as a primary focus. 2. Sustainability becomes a CIO objective. Forty-four percent of CIOs, more than any other C-suite role, say they're aligning initiatives with sustainability goals to ensure their organization is more agile and resilient. Looking ahead, CIOs are also the most likely of their peers to believe that the next generation of leaders at their company is going to have an increased focus on sustainability (87% of CIOs vs. 83% overall). 3. Automation is expanding. When asked where they will expand transformation efforts over the next two years, CIOs shared priorities that lean heavily on automation. Their top responses were: 4. Technology adoption poses challenges. The top obstacles CIOs anticipate over the next year are: *As titles differ across enterprises, this may include responses from other top technology executives, such as chief technology officers.
Time of India
28-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
AI is taking over 93% of US workplaces but only half are trained to use it: Who's falling behind, and why?
AI is taking over 93% of US workplaces but only 49% are trained to use it, says a survey by Forbes. Artificial intelligence is no longer an experiment in the American workplace: it's the new normal. From retail to finance, healthcare to logistics, AI tools are transforming how companies operate. But while the tools are rolling out rapidly, training for the people expected to use them isn't catching up. That growing disconnect is becoming one of the most overlooked risks in the AI revolution. According to the Forbes Research 2025 CxO Growth Survey , 93% of US companies plan to increase their AI investments over the next two years. More than half (56%) are boosting their AI budgets by over 16%, making it one of the top two technology investment areas, alongside cybersecurity. Yet only 49% of CHROs say their organisations are currently prioritising training in AI and data analysis. Even among companies with the most aggressive AI spending plans, that number only reaches 57%. And in the technology sector, where one might expect AI preparedness to be strongest, only 38% of HR leaders say AI training is a top priority. The tools are ready, but are the people? AI tools are already reshaping business operations. Sixty-nine percent of executives say AI agents are transforming automation, allowing teams to shift focus to more strategic work. But strategic outcomes depend on human capability: and that's where many companies are falling short. Without proper training, employees may lack the confidence or knowledge to use AI tools effectively. That leads to underutilisation, inefficient processes, and in some cases, failed implementations. The promise of AI often goes unrealised not because the technology is flawed, but because the people using it aren't equipped to do so. Why companies are leaving training behind Speed is a big factor. In the rush to implement AI tools and stay ahead of competitors, training is often deprioritised. There's also a common assumption that younger, digitally fluent employees will adapt on their own. But AI literacy is more than familiarity — it involves understanding how algorithms work, interpreting outputs, and knowing when to override or escalate decisions made by machines. In many companies, training is ad hoc or reactive. Employees are handed new tools and left to 'figure it out.' That might work for simple software updates. But with AI reshaping job roles, workflows, and decision-making, a more structured approach is needed. The human cost of falling behind When training lags behind tech, the consequences can ripple across the organisation. Employees may feel overwhelmed or anxious, unsure how to integrate new tools into their existing workflows. Teams may resist adoption entirely, especially if they fear job displacement. And without the skills to question or verify AI outputs, mistakes can slip through — potentially damaging operations or customer trust. The more AI becomes embedded in core business functions, the more critical it is that human users are brought along for the ride. Otherwise, the very systems designed to increase productivity could end up stalling it. Closing the gap before it widens The AI revolution in the US is moving fast, but it's not too late to bridge the readiness gap. Companies that pause to train, upskill, and engage their workforce may ultimately move faster and more successfully than those who rush to deploy without preparation. As AI continues to expand into 93% of US workplaces, the question isn't whether people can keep up. It's whether companies will give them the tools, time, and training to do so. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
