Lenovo’s 2026 CIO Playbook Finds 95 Per Cent Of ANZ Enterprises Plan To Lift AI Spending As Focus Shifts From Pilots To Production

Almost all enterprises across Australia and New Zealand plan to increase their AI investments over the next 12 months, according to new research from Lenovo and IDC, as the region’s CIOs move from experimentation toward deploying AI at scale.

The fourth edition of the Lenovo CIO Playbook – titled The Race for Enterprise AI – surveyed 920 IT and business decision makers across Asia Pacific, including 135 in ANZ. It found that 95 per cent of ANZ organisations intend to grow their AI budgets, with an average year-on-year spending increase of 10 per cent.

Across the broader Asia Pacific region, that figure rises to 96 per cent, with average AI spending growth of around 15 per cent. The investments span generative AI, agentic AI, public cloud AI services, on-premises AI infrastructure and AI security tools.

ROI expectations remain high but are becoming more measured

The report found that 88 per cent of ANZ CIOs expect their AI initiatives to deliver a positive return on investment, with organisations anticipating an average return of 2.8 times their initial outlay – or US$2.85 for every US$1 invested.

That figure is down from last year’s expected return of US$3.60 across the region, which IDC attributes to organisations having moved past initial quick wins and into the more complex phase of enterprise-wide integration.

Charles Ferland, VP and GM of ESMB, Infrastructure Solutions Group at Lenovo, pointed to the shift away from experimentation.

“With 95 per cent of ANZ enterprises planning to increase AI investments at an average of 10 per cent year-on-year, the conversation has clearly moved beyond experimentation toward scaled business impact,” Ferland noted.

“CIOs are increasingly focused on turning AI into a long-term competitive advantage, prioritizing initiatives that drive growth, improve customer experience and deliver measurable business outcomes.”

AI adoption moves beyond IT departments

Across Asia Pacific, 66 per cent of enterprises are now piloting or systematically adopting AI, more than doubling from 29 per cent the previous year. In ANZ, 64 per cent have reached the piloting or systematic adoption stage, with a further 23 per cent in the planning and consideration phase.

AI deployment is no longer confined to IT teams. Half of the organisations surveyed reported that non-IT departments are now funding AI initiatives, with finance functions seeing a 115 per cent increase in AI implementation and industry-specific lines of business up 104 per cent.

The average organisation ran 37 proofs of concept in the past year, with about half of those reaching production. Around 52 per cent of target users are adopting AI projects once they reach production.

Agentic AI draws growing interest but readiness lags

Interest in agentic AI – systems that can set goals, make decisions and take actions autonomously – has increased 67 per cent year-on-year in ANZ, with 22 per cent of organisations reporting they already have it in use.

Across the wider region, 21 per cent of Asia Pacific organisations report they are using agentic AI, while nearly 60 per cent are exploring, piloting or planning limited deployments. Telecommunications, healthcare and government are the sectors showing the most interest.

However, readiness remains uneven. Only a small proportion of organisations consider themselves prepared for scaled agentic AI implementation, with 41 per cent saying they need more than 12 months to scale meaningfully. Security, governance, data quality and integration complexity are the main barriers cited.

Debdut Maiti, Director of Greater Asia Pacific, Solutions and Services Group at Lenovo, highlighted the governance challenge.

“Agentic AI represents one of the most significant transformation opportunities across ANZ enterprises today,” Maiti explained. “With 52 per cent of enterprises actively developing governance frameworks, CIOs are investing in data quality, integration and controls to ensure agentic AI drives reliable, enterprise-wide impact.”

Hybrid AI becomes the default infrastructure model

The Playbook found that 86 per cent of organisations across Asia Pacific now incorporate on-premises or edge environments as part of hybrid AI architectures, making hybrid the default model for enterprise AI deployment.

In ANZ, 85 per cent of organisations prefer hybrid AI architectures combining on-premises, edge and cloud. ANZ stands out in the region for its preference toward on-premises and edge-only deployment, with 39 per cent of ANZ enterprises favouring these models – the highest rate across Asia Pacific markets surveyed.

The report attributes this to heightened concerns around data sovereignty, intellectual property risks and the growing complexity of managing cloud environments. Intellectual property risk ranked as the number one AI trust concern among ANZ respondents, followed by a lack of responsible AI practices and poor data quality.

ANZ prioritises infrastructure and devices

ANZ organisations ranked deploying and supporting AI infrastructure as their top AI investment priority for the next 12 months, followed by deploying AI devices, public cloud AI services, on-premises AI infrastructure and generative AI development.

The emphasis on infrastructure and devices suggests ANZ CIOs are focused on building the foundational capabilities needed to support long-term AI deployment before scaling use cases more broadly.

The report noted that ANZ ranked “enhance, innovate or reinvent our business with AI” as its number one business priority for 2026, a shift from the previous year’s more general focus on digital business innovation. Revenue and profit growth ranked second, followed by supply chain optimisation, sustainability and regulatory compliance.

Governance frameworks remain a work in progress

Only about one-third of ANZ organisations have comprehensive AI governance frameworks in place, while 52 per cent are still in the process of developing policies. Thirteen per cent have only ad-hoc measures, and 3 per cent have nothing established.

Across Asia Pacific, the picture is similar, with roughly two-thirds of all organisations lacking a comprehensive framework for AI governance, risk and compliance. The report warned that many organisations are trying to scale AI without adequate guardrails.

Among the top trust concerns cited by survey respondents across the region were a lack of responsible AI practices, poor data security and poor data quality.

AI inferencing emerges as a cost and strategy concern

The report highlighted three priorities it expects will define the year ahead for CIOs. First, AI inferencing is becoming a significant cost factor – over a model’s lifecycle, inferencing costs can be up to 15 times higher than training. By 2030, IDC predicts 75 per cent of AI compute will be dedicated to inferencing, with 80 per cent of enterprises relying on distributed edge infrastructure.

Second, employee productivity through AI devices is climbing as a strategic investment priority, with IDC forecasting that 50 per cent of enterprise PC purchases will shift to models with on-device AI agents by 2027.

Third, scaling AI remains the defining challenge. While 88 per cent of enterprises expect positive ROI, only around half of AI proofs of concept make it to production.

Scaling is no longer optional

Silke Barlow, General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions for ANZ at Lenovo, framed the current moment as a turning point.

“From what we are seeing across ANZ, enterprises are entering a critical phase where scaling AI is no longer optional, it is a business priority,” Barlow observed. “Organisations are aligning investments toward infrastructure, governance and data readiness to ensure AI delivers measurable outcomes.”

“This creates a strong opportunity for enterprises to differentiate, as those that operationalise AI effectively will be better positioned to drive growth, resilience and long-term value.”

Industry and regional variations

The report broke down findings by industry and found that telecommunications and cloud service providers lead in AI adoption, with 88 per cent having moved past early-stage deployment. Banking, financial services and insurance followed at 70 per cent, while government organisations lagged at 41 per cent.

Interest in agentic AI varied by sector, with telecoms recording a 341 per cent year-on-year increase in focus, followed by healthcare at 325 per cent and government at 289 per cent. Manufacturing showed more modest growth at 14 per cent.

Across regional markets, Japan recorded the largest surge in agentic AI interest at 175 per cent, while India saw a 139 per cent increase. ANZ’s 67 per cent growth was more measured, reflecting the region’s cautious approach to scaling autonomous AI systems.

The Lenovo CIO Playbook 2026 was developed from a survey of 920 respondents across Japan, South Korea, India, ANZ and ASEAN+ markets, with research insights provided by IDC. The ANZ sample comprised 135 respondents drawn from C-suite and C-1 level executives across organisations with 250 or more employees.

Last Updated on May 27, 2026 by Nick Ross