CGI’s annual Voice of Our Clients programme interviews leaders around the world to uncover the priorities, opportunities, trends, and challenges that are shaping today’s industries.
The programme provides invaluable insights on what is impacting not only CGI’s clients, but the forces that are shaping their industries. It also uncovers both organisational and future investment priorities.
CGI has unveiled its 2025 findings, gathered through individual meetings with 1,800 executives worldwide; 157 were UK leaders, including clients across Scotland.
The conversations explored a huge range of topics from AI to IT modernisation, talent management, cybersecurity, data, and cloud maturity, plus innovation and sustainability.
Top of the findings is that executives are doubling down on AI and digitisation investment, despite having to contend with growing cost pressures and talent shortages.
However, as AI is increasingly a focus and priority for leaders, the UK is lagging in terms of advanced AI implementation, with only 21% of organisations having achieved it compared to 35% worldwide.
The main reason is legacy systems, 63% of executives said they are holding back growth, compared to 46% worldwide.
This is coupled with cost pressures and a shortage of skilled workers needed to drive implementation and modernisation forward. While almost 70% of executives globally struggled to recruit and retain IT professionals, in the UK it was higher at 76%.
The area where that shortage was more acutely felt was the local public sector, with 86% of organisations highlighting the challenge to find talented IT staff. While in the private sector it was 65%.
Despite recruitment issues, globally and in the UK, thoughts were aligned at 67% over plans to hold or increase resourcing and capital budgets next year.
Other interesting findings emerged.
CGI found that every sector is committed to transforming value chains and modernising outdated legacy tech. Leaders are also trialling new managed-service partnerships, cloud solutions and AI deployment, all in a concerted effort to build future resilience and drive growth.
This is despite the current wave of challenges affecting businesses around the world. In its global findings, CGI found that 67% of senior executives agreed that they were feeling the growing pressure from changing political, fiscal and regulatory environments.
In the UK, that figure is lower at 60%, showing that businesses have more confidence than their peers in other countries dealing with a large number of factors outside of their control.
Of less concern across the UK and Northern Ireland is uncertainty around the world economic order and resilience of supply chains. Just over a quarter of leaders – 26% – cited this as a worry compared to 38% around the world.
However, 24% in the UK are concerned with the rise in online disinformation, increased polarisation and social divergence, compared to 17% globally. Despite that, 72% believe technology and digital acceleration is needed to tackle these challenges head on and reshape their industries.
In terms of future planning, all clients expressed that they are finding value in managed service partnerships, updated legacy applications, and cloud migration.
20% of UK executives expressed a reliance on fully managed IT services for applications, compared to 15% globally. When it comes to using AI to deliver tangible business benefits, CGI discovered slightly over one in five have rolled out traditional AI solutions or adopted generative AI, compared to 35% and 26% respectively elsewhere in the world.
Reflecting on the UK’s poor AI adoption rate, Russell Goodenough, CGI Head of AI in the UK and Australia, says there are various ways UK businesses can reverse this.
He comments that “Our findings do show businesses are performing below their global counterparts when it comes to adoption of AI. But there are clear steps that they can adopt to improve this figure.
“They should focus on people and change as much as the technology itself. Building trust through clear governance, transparency and leadership is just as important as technical integration.
“Senior executives must be seen to be encouraging adoption and create further AI champions across its entire workforce whilst employees should be trained in good use of AI by these champions to build confidence in its use.
“This will make adoption of AI part of day to day working life.”
With regards to skilled staff shortages, Russell continues: “A lot of it is down to the pace of technological change. When it comes to new capabilities, the public sector in particular can struggle to keep up. That struggle can extend into attracting key talent, often losing out to the private sector.
“There are ways they can bridge that gap. Firstly, as previously mentioned, make AI a part of everyday work. This is not just through training, but also by providing employees with hands-on opportunities to use AI tools at work.
“When it comes to implementing wider adoption of AI, change management can run much smoother – and quicker. That is because colleagues are more emboldened to explore AI responsibly, with AI champions providing a supportive environment where they can share their experiences.”
“This collaborative environment can also include external partners. Blending business process and technology expertise makes it easier for employees to understand how to apply AI to a specific task.
“But above all senior managers and business leaders must visibly use and advocate for AI. When leaders role model AI adoption, it normalises experimentation and reassures teams, and makes using this new technology – which is still rapidly changing – become routine.”
Tara McGeehan, President of CGI in the UK and Australia, adds that boards must also make sure they are not left behind when it comes to other future trends, among them quantum and neuromorphic computing.
She says: “Despite strong economic headwinds, UK organisations aren’t hitting pause, they’re pushing forward. The shift we’re seeing is from experimentation to execution. AI is no longer theoretical. It’s moving into production, and fast. The winners will be those who modernise their foundations now to scale adoption safely and effectively.
“AI isn’t the only game-changer on the horizon. Quantum and neuromorphic computing are coming fast. Leaders need to be ready to create a culture of experimentation and stay alert to the next wave of disruption. The pace of change isn’t slowing, and no one wants to be left playing catch-up.”
