What CIOs and CKOs are prioritizing

As we engage with clients and shape our propositions, it’s critical to stay aligned with where technology and knowledge leaders are focusing their investment.

From our own conversations and interactions, alongside insights from industry-leading analysts such as Gartner and IDC, a clear shift is continuing into 2026: investment is no longer about deploying technology, it’s about delivering measurable, scalable business value.

What CIOs are prioritizing in 2026

• Cybersecurity & resilience remain the top priority in an increasingly AI-driven threat landscape

• Scaling AI for value: moving beyond pilots to enterprise-wide adoption and ROI

• Data foundations: improving quality, governance, and accessibility to enable trusted AI

• Modern digital core: continued investment in cloud, platforms, and integration

• Cost optimization + growth: using automation and AI to drive efficiency while enabling revenue

What CKOs (and knowledge leaders) are prioritizing in 2026

• AI-ready knowledge ecosystems: structuring content for GenAI, copilots, and intelligent assistants

• Moving beyond enterprise search: towards AI coworkers (e.g. Copilot, Claude-style assistants) that deliver contextual, task-based knowledge in the flow of work

• Trust, governance & content quality: ensuring reliable, explainable AI outputs

• Knowledge capture at scale: unlocking tacit knowledge across the organization

• Knowledge activation: embedding insights directly into workflows, decisions, and business processes

What this means for Atlas partners and influencers

As you may know, Atlas provides an important and often missing part of the data quality stack that should (bit often doesn't) support AI. Using the proven capabilities of Atlas such as automated taxonomy tagging and gold standard labelling, we can dramatically improve the outcomes for any and all AI tools used on corporate content.

• Atlas has proven business outcomes and demonstrable AI value

• Position data and knowledge as critical enablers of AI coworkers and copilots

• Focus on knowledge activation in the flow of work and not just findability

• Build in trust, governance, and security by design

  In short, the opportunity is shifting from implementing technology to enabling AI-powered coworkers that unlock the full value of organizational knowledge.