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How businesses can future-proof IT infrastructure with AI
AI can help CIOs future-proof IT by monitoring systems, predicting needs, improving performance, strengthening security and accelerating infrastructure modernization.
One of the top objectives for Diana Cano, CIO of Cambium Learning Group, is building a resilient IT environment that can adapt as business and technology conditions change, even when those changes are unexpected.
That means having a flexible, vendor-neutral architecture that enables IT to easily shift from incumbent providers to new ones when those providers offer platforms better suited to the company's needs, and to stay at the forefront of technology trends.
Cano said having such an architecture best prepares IT to deliver whatever the business might need in the future.
"Future-proofing is really about building resiliency, and doing that by having architectural resiliency," Cano explained, calling it a mission-driven strategic objective for IT.
CIOs have always had the task of building and running IT infrastructure that enables the organization's mission. But as IT moved from being a function that supported the business to one that drives it, CIOs have had to prioritize building an IT environment that ensures long-term organizational success, no matter what happens.
That's where leading CIOs are today. As such, they're doing more than modernizing their technology state; they "are rewiring their companies for competitive advantage" and fueling future growth, according to research from McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
"It's about balancing what you've got and need to keep running and what you need for the next two to three years," said Abhishek Sengupta, a vice president in the data analytics and AI practice at research firm Everest Group.
"It's about designing infrastructure to pivot," added Michael Allen, CTO at tech company Laserfiche.
Like other leading tech execs, Allen said AI is a tool that can help do all that.
How AI can help CIOs future-proof IT infrastructure
IT leaders shared six ways AI can help future-proof IT infrastructure:
1. Monitoring
CIOs are using AI to continuously analyze logs, metrics and events to detect anomalies and automate remediation, reducing downtime and operational risk.
AI helps IT teams separate signals from noise faster and more accurately than other analysis methods, said Jennifer Fernandes, lead of the AI and technology transformation unit at Tata Consultancy Services in North America.
For example, IT teams can use AI to automate root cause analysis, including the initial data correlation across massive volumes of telemetry and logs needed for the investigation. "It's about getting those insights in real time," Fernandes explained, adding that IT could even use agentic AI to execute recommended fixes to ensure the infrastructure can handle current and future needs.
2. Predicting needs
AI can forecast capacity needs. For example, machine learning models can be used to predict performance degradation. Intelligent monitoring can provide prescriptive actions to maintain reliability as infrastructure scales, complexity grows and new workloads are added. Agentic AI can execute recommendations.
3. Performance testing
IT can use AI to continuously model workloads and analyze system behavior under dynamic conditions, thereby helping to optimize the environment and prevent latency issues and bottlenecks by identifying them before they occur. This use of AI lets IT teams scale infrastructure confidently to deliver reliability without issue. And it does this faster than manual testing and tuning.
"All of the '-abilities' we worry about -- reliability, scalability, availability -- we can use agents to evaluate where we are and where we need to shore up that infrastructure," Cano said.
4. Security operations
Here, IT teams are using AI to automate anomaly and threat detection, triage and incident response and vulnerability management.
"AI is a key asset for us to stay one step ahead of threat actors," Cano said. "We can use it to test our systems more dynamically and more thoroughly with more nuanced testing to ensure we're securing our systems in a way that's expected by our customers."
5. Generating code, delivering infrastructure as code
Software maker ServiceNow found in a recent survey of IT professionals that 72% of them use AI-generated code in their development processes.
Fernandes cited this use of AI as another way the technology is helping IT teams prepare for the future, saying it enables CIOs and their staffers to modernize more quickly.
AI can also aid in creating software-defined systems and infrastructure as code. AI can generate IaC scripts and analyze them for errors, security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices.
Allen said IaC -- also sometimes called software-defined infrastructure -- is particularly helpful for future-proofing IT. IaC enables IT to manage resources automatically rather than manually, making IT more agile and better able to adapt to changing needs.
6. Resiliency
All of these ways that AI helps IT departments manage their IT environments help ensure resiliency by improving the department's ability to design, build and deliver infrastructure that meets current and future business needs.
"Resiliency is about being able to react to and handle unknowns," Allen said. "Resiliency is a function of the architecture, and AI is a tool that helps you deliver it."
Investing in AI for IT
Although AI offers the possibility of transformation, including in the IT department, that AI-enabled transformation doesn't come easily. AI requires financial investment, skilled professionals, leaders to guide its adoption and workers willing and able to use the technology effectively. AI also requires appropriate guardrails, including human oversight, according to Sengupta.
Moreover, organizations face challenges in addressing each of those required components for AI adoption -- particularly in IT, he said, adding that the challenges aren't insurmountable.
For example, executives might not see a proven path to ROI, making it more challenging for CIOs to secure the resources needed for AI initiatives in their departments than for executives leading sales or marketing, where AI investments can show a top-line benefit.
To counter that, Sengupta advised CIOs to "unlock capital to get when they need by using AI to shave off costs and then reinvest gains from AI back into AI." That can help CIOs get the resources they need to deploy AI and build the IT infrastructure they need to run the business now and in the coming years -- especially as the business expects more AI deployments, he added.
Mary K. Pratt is an award-winning freelance journalist with a focus on covering enterprise IT and cybersecurity management.
