Gartner Survey Finds 54% of Infrastructure & Operations Leaders Are Adopting AI to Cut Costs – Gartner –December 2, 2025

Fifty-four percent of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders said cost optimization is their top goal for adopting AI, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

Expert Take:

Melanie Freeze, Research Director at Gartner.

“While AI is the top growth area for future I&O investment, integration difficulties (48% of respondents) and lack of budget (50% of respondents) were cited as top adoption challenges,” said Melanie Freeze, Research Director at Gartner.

Gartner says I&O leaders need to adopt AI intentionally. “Rather than chasing big AI projects, they should start with high-value, feasible pilots and flexible upgrades,” said Freeze. “For example, organizations could use GenAI for cloud cost management to automatically analyze cloud billing, resource usage and infrastructure efficiency.”

Cybersecurity operations and talent/skills development are the second and third most common areas, where many I&O leaders (49% and 48%, respectively) expect to increase their investments in the future (see Figure 1).

To learn more, visit: www.gartner.com