Most (94%) IT leaders are facing challenges to optimise cloud costs, according to a recent research commissioned by Crayon.
The report by Sapio, which surveyed about 2,300 IT decision-makers across the US, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region, also shows that 41% of IT budgets are now being directed toward scaling cloud capabilities, primarily to support AI workloads.
Some 40% say that AI will be the top IT cost challenge they face over the next three years, even though the majority (60%) are already using AI to automate IT processes.
Infrastructure decisions
The report found that the leading drivers for infrastructure decisions were security and compliance. Organisations are also considering shifting their IT infrastructure spend toward on-premises solutions, with an average of 37% of the budget earmarked for hybrid or on-premises strategies, driven by concerns over data privacy, regulatory compliance, and vendor lock-in.
Some 44% of organisations report limited visibility into their cloud spending, and nearly half cite unexpected cost fluctuations as a significant issue despite widespread adoption of cloud-native and third-party FinOps tools, pushing them to reconsider tooling strategies and seek external expertise.
"At Crayon, we see FinOps as the discipline that brings clarity to this challenge – helping IT leaders forecast, govern, and optimise across hybrid and cloud environments," said Crayon vice president of Global Sales Ulrik Roland. "By combining transparency with actionable insights, we empower our customers to unlock the true business value of their technology investments."
