Dedale Intelligence’s take on Office of the CIO

Office of the CIO 2025 - The Future of the CIO Software Stack

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The terms “Office of the CIO” and “Office of the CTO” often get used interchangeably. How do you distinguish between them?

Maxime Huig: At Dedale Intelligence, we analyze this landscape through two main dimensions.

The first is core responsibility:

• Development and engineering, typically the CTO’s remit.
• Administration and operations, closely tied to the CIO.
• Monitoring and observability, ensuring reliability, also under the CIO.
• And security, which is the CISO’s domain.

The second dimension is the type of IT asset: front-layer assets like applications and devices, and back-layer assets such as infrastructure, databases, or cloud environments.

Thinking about CIO software through these two lenses, responsibilities and assets, helps clarify a very fragmented space.

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Does customer adoption reflect this neat segmentation?

Maxime Huig: Not exactly. In reality, adoption is far more nuanced.

• There are no universally accepted “mainstream” stack strategies.
• Governance factors such as organizational size, budget allocation, and leadership strength play a decisive role.
• Execution models vary a lot: some companies build in-house, while others rely heavily on managed service providers.

Broadly, large enterprises adopt more fragmented toolkits, combining multiple specialized solutions, while smaller organizations lean toward comprehensive platforms for simplicity and cost efficiency.

Governance, not technology, is often the biggest factor shaping CIO software choices.

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Who are the main players shaping this market today?

Maxime Huig: The market is highly fragmented, but some clear leaders have emerged in each function:

• DevOps – Atlassian, JFrog, GitLab‍
• Administration – ServiceNow, Ivanti, Flexera‍
• Monitoring & Observability – Dynatrace, Datadog, Elastic‍
• Security – CrowdStrike, Palo Alto

Interestingly, players like ServiceNow are expanding beyond their core, from ITSM into monitoring and observability, to build more transversal offerings. Beneath these giants, there’s a long tail of niche vendors focused on specific use cases or IT assets.

The CIO stack is dominated by a few platforms, but beneath them lies a dynamic ecosystem of highly specialized vendors.

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From an investment perspective, which areas look most attractive?

Maxime Huig: DevOps remains a high-growth segment, especially with AI-driven innovation in areas like code generation and automated testing.

In administration, ITSM is dominated by large players, but ITAM (asset management) has spawned numerous point solutions, for enterprise assets, software, and unified endpoint management.

Monitoring and observability continues to be very dynamic, with both platforms and niche tools offering strong differentiation.

And of course, cybersecurity remains vast, with prevention, detection, and response each generating their own sub-markets.

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AI is reshaping many industries. How is it transforming the CIO software stack?

Maxime Huig: AI is a genuine game changer here. It enables automation, predictive insights, and faster resolution. It’s also raising questions about the long-term differentiation of some use cases, like software testing.

That said, most IT software solutions are deeply embedded and structural. They’re not easily commoditized by AI,  instead, AI enhances their value.

Take Dynatrace, which uses telemetry and contextual AI copilots for troubleshooting, or ServiceNow, which automates ticket resolution workflows. These are not just feature upgrades; they fundamentally shift customer expectations.

AI is no longer a bolt-on. It’s becoming the engine accelerating transformation across the CIO stack.

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Looking ahead, how should CIOs think about their evolving software ecosystem?

Maxime Huig: CIOs should accept that fragmentation is here to stay. The key will be balancing specialized tools with integration, while leveraging AI to amplify value across the stack.

In practice, that means:

• Using AI to streamline operations, monitoring, and resolution.
• Building flexible architectures that allow coexistence of multiple best-of-breed tools.
• And ensuring governance, leadership, budgets, priorities, aligns with the complexity of the IT estate.

The winners will be those who turn fragmentation into flexibility, using AI as the connective tissue across the CIO stack.

This interview is part of Dedale Intelligence’s ongoing series of expert insights, bringing research-driven perspectives on the most dynamic segments in software and technology. For more in-depth analysis, explore our latest articles, or contact us.