Balancing IT operational demands with the increased emphasis on digital innovation has been a long-standing challenge for IT leaders. Today, with all eyes on wringing value and strategic advantage from AI investments, that equilibrium demands smart investment in enabling technologies as well as alignment with key partners.
CIOs, in particular, are feeling the strain as their charter continues to become more digital and innovation-focused. In the 2025 State of the CIO research, 82% of the IT respondents said they are leading digital transformation efforts while also ensuring that the day-to-day technology demands of running the business are being met. Striking the right balance between escalating innovation demands and operational excellence has been an ongoing challenge, cited by more than three-quarters (76%) of the respondents.
Although the dual agenda shows no signs of easing, the AI era presents a renewed opportunity to fortify IT infrastructure, changing how enterprise work gets done. It’s also a pivotal moment to empower IT organizations to offload routine tasks and shift focus to higher-value efforts that promote innovation.
“This is a chance to reevaluate and reassess how IT thinks about work, the types of roles they are filling, and how they measure productivity,” explains Corbett Hoxland, a member of HP’s distinguished technologists group.
Get back to basics
One way to carve out more time for innovation is to get out ahead of the problems most likely to disrupt business operations. Getting basic IT infrastructure and infrastructure management right is a critical first step — one that many IT organizations undervalue. “It’s critical to know what’s going on in your environment across everything that enables the business,” Hoxland says.
HP’s Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) gives IT organizations that much-needed visibility into the entire digital ecosystem. The platform enables IT teams to proactively manage, monitor, and optimize devices, collaboration tools, digital workspaces, applications, and other assets. Built-in AI capabilities help identify and resolve IT issues well in advance of business disruption, reducing employee frustration. Analytics, user feedback, and experience scores create a continuous feedback loop of user sentiment so IT can optimize every aspect of the experience.
Engaging professional services is another way to reduce the legwork associated with managing a commercial PC fleet. For example, HP’s Configuration & Deployment Service delivers business-ready devices with preloaded software images, BIOS settings, and security configurations. HP’s Premium Support services offer 24/7 onsite and remote IT support for commercial PCs, including AMD advanced models. Automating routine administrative tasks frees IT up to focus on more challenging work while minimizing disruption to the user experience for system upgrades.
And with state-of-the art meeting room platforms such as HP Poly videoconferencing solutions and AI AMD advanced PCs, IT can ensure that employees have ample compute and collaboration horsepower to drive business innovation without creating unnecessary and burdensome IT administrative work. For example, HP AI PCs built on the AMD Ryzen™ AI processor platform deliver faster multithreaded performance for more efficiently tackling the demands of AI and compute-intensive workloads.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, like the internet of 30 years ago, for IT to make the most out of AI innovation for the organization, employees, and customers,” Hoxland says.
Find out the ways HP can help IT leaders more effectively balance their innovation requirements.