Info-Tech LIVE 2025 Day 2 Highlights: Bold Strategies for AI, IT Leadership, and Digital Disruption
Saturday, June 14, 2025
The second day of Info-Tech LIVE 2025 continued to build momentum, spotlighting bold leadership insights, forward-looking AI strategies, and transformative playbooks to guide IT organizations through exponential change.
TORONTO, June 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ - Info-Tech LIVE 2025 brought another wave of powerful insights to the thousands of IT leaders gathered at the Bellagio in Las Vegas for the global research and advisory firm's annual industry conference. From AI's organizational impact to transformative leadership frameworks, the day-two sessions of the three-day event delivered strategic direction across the most pressing areas of enterprise technology.
The keynotes drilled into the leadership disciplines and bold bets that separate tomorrow's IT winners from the pack. Featured speakers unpacked everything from building an exceptional IT leadership bench and steering high?stakes digital gambles to sizing up the next wave of tech trends and reigniting motivation at the human level.
Key Highlights From Info-Tech LIVE 2025 in Last Vegas Day 2:
1. Systematically Improve IT: The Seven Secrets of Successful CIOs
Speaker: Geoff Nielson, SVP of Brand & Reach at Info-Tech Research Group
Geoff Nielson opened day two of Info-Tech LIVE 2025 by tackling a familiar pain point for the industry: IT departments trapped in "firefighting mode," viewed as operational support rather than strategic change agents. Nielson argued that escaping this cycle isn't about adding tools or headcount; rather, it requires a structural reset of how IT leads, aligns, and delivers value.
To that end, Nielson expanded on the IT Playbooks unveiled on day one by the firm's CEO, Tom Zehren. Info-Tech's newly launched IT Playbooks are five interlocking leadership playbooks for CIO, Infrastructure & Operations, Data, Applications, and Security. Each provides a clear cadence, accountability, and role-specific metrics so IT leaders can move in concert, not just in parallel.
Key takeaways
-- Transformation is a team sport. The CIO must act as an architect and
empower domain leads within applications, infrastructure & operations,
security, data, and enterprise architecture to carry shared
responsibility for modernization, AI adoption, and resilience.
-- Playbooks turn ambition into traction. By standardizing strategy,
governance, and key performance indicators (KPIs), the playbook
framework enables leadership teams to shift from reactive tasks to
proactive, high-impact initiatives.
-- Measure what matters. Nielson urged attendees to track role-specific
"satisfaction" metrics - such as IT satisfaction for CIOs or data
culture scores for data leads - and then use feedback loops to
prioritize improvements.
2. Winning With Big Bets in the Hyper Digital Era
Speaker: John Rossman, former Amazon executive and best-selling author
John Rossman argued that in today's hyper-digital marketplace, cautious, incremental projects rarely move the needle. Instead, companies need well-governed "big bets" that tackle transformational opportunities head-on. Yet many large initiatives stall because teams treat them purely as technology rollouts, overlook the riskiest assumptions, or fail to assign clear decision rights and incentives.
Key takeaways
-- Bold beats incremental. Small, safe steps can lead to stagnation;
well-framed big bets unlock outsized value.
-- Work backward from outcomes. Rossman's "Build Backward" method starts
with a press release-style end-state narrative, then maps experiments to
validate the riskiest hypotheses first.
-- Create clarity, sustain velocity. Teams use a shared shorthand to keep
decisions focused and momentum high.
-- Be an active skeptic. Big bet leaders ruthlessly test assumptions, kill
weak ideas early, and redeploy resources toward opportunities with
clear, risk-adjusted returns.
-- Measure return on experimentation. A big bet experiment planner stack
ranks unknowns and tracks how quickly each test reduces risk or unlocks
value, so every experiment pays its way forward.
3. Tech Trends Retrospective and Sneak Peek
Speaker: Rob Meikle, Executive Counselor, Info-Tech Research Group
Rob Meikle likened Info-Tech's annual trend analysis to a compass for IT leaders, grounded in data and disciplined foresight, not hype. Looking back at 45 predictions made since 2017, Info-Tech counts 29 hits, unpacking why some technologies deliver sustained value while others stall.
Key takeaways
-- Don't bet on predictions - pursue value. Success stories, such as
Citizen Development 2.0, proved their worth by empowering an entire
workforce, whereas vision-heavy plays, like the Metaverse, fizzled
without a killer use case.
-- Think like a venture capitalist. Diversify bets and map the drivers. IoT
thrived because interoperability and analytics were in place. However,
Blockchain 2.0 remained niche where feasibility lagged.
-- Be a first mover on transformative tech. Early adopters of generative AI
rewrote the competitive rules; arriving late to mandatory sustainability
reporting showed how incremental plays yield limited upside.
Sneak peek - 2026 trends themes to watch
-- Potential hits: Multiagent orchestration (automating knowledge work at
scale) and AI as adversary and ally (AI-driven cyberdefense) top the
list for broad applicability and value creation.
-- Proceed with caution. Topics like purpose-built platforms may optimize
high-compute workloads but lack the cross-industry impact needed for a
breakout win.
Meikle's closing message: IT leaders shouldn't merely react to change; they should shape it. Turn uncertainty into opportunity and ensure IT remains a true value engine.
4. The Next Renaissance
Speaker: Zack Kass, Global AI Advisor, Former Head of Go-to-Market, OpenAI
Zack Kass delivered a keynote that explored how plummeting AI costs and rapidly advancing models are ushering in what he called a "Cambrian economic explosion." Kass' mission is to strip away the mystery around AI so leaders can shape, rather than fear, what comes next.
Key takeaways
-- Three integration waves. Today's "enhanced apps" phase of ChatGPT-style
copilots will give way to autonomous agents that act on our behalf and
then, eventually, to a natural-language operating system that makes
computing ambient and screen-lite.
-- Unmetered intelligence. As inference costs approach zero, raw cognitive
power becomes a utility. Real differentiation will come from how
creatively organizations apply it.
-- Risks to watch. Kass flagged four pitfalls - cognitive complacency, a
drift toward virtual-first living, AI-enabled bad actors, and an
impending identity-and-purpose crisis as work automates.
-- Upside potential. AI can expand individual capability, deflate the cost
of essentials like healthcare and education, and free time for richer
human pursuits - if policy keeps pace.
-- How to prepare. Leaders should:
1. Learn how to learn. Adaptability outlasts any single skill.
2. Master human qualities. Empathy, curiosity, and courage will matter
more than rote knowledge.
3. Cultivate optimism. Positive visions galvanize action and repel
fear-driven paralysis.
Kass left the audience with a challenge: tell better stories about the future. "Optimism isn't naive," he said. "It's the fuel that turns uncertainty into a more human world."
5. Addictive Leadership Stories in the League: An Interview with Steve Reese, CIO of the Phoenix Suns
Speaker: Steve Reese, Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Phoenix Suns
CIO of the Phoenix Suns Steve Reese started his keynote presentation by asking the crowd a disarming question: "Are you the kind of leader you'd follow?" His answer centers on "addictive leadership" - not manipulation - which he explained is a style that makes people feel understood and driven by high purpose.
Key takeaways
-- Motivation fuels engagement. Lasting performance comes from tapping the
intrinsic "why," not just dangling extrinsic perks.
-- Target the right part of the brain. Great leaders speak to the cortex,
focusing on purpose, creativity, and strategy rather than relying on
fear-based, reptilian instincts.
-- Leverage the Reiss Motivational Profile. Sixteen core desires, such as
curiosity, independence, and tranquility, combine uniquely for each
person; aligning work to those drivers lights the spark.
-- One size never fits all. Leaders must "read" each team member, match
tasks to natural strengths, and design complementary teams.
-- Case in point - Paul. Reese described transforming a disengaged employee
into a high performer by tweaking the environment (e.g. providing quiet
spaces or workout breaks) and offering autonomy and role clarity,
proving that small, personalized changes often lead to better
performance.
-- The new leadership mandate. Modern IT demands leaders coach, adapt, and
foster sustainable motivation because people stay for a purpose, not
just for the pay.
Looking Ahead to Day 3 at Info-Tech LIVE 2025
The third and final day of the conference has a half-day agenda that will keep the pace brisk while zeroing in on three key themes: building the next generation of tech talent, practical lessons from high-performing IT leadership teams, and emerging frontiers, such as advanced AI and quantum computing. The third day of the conference will feature keynote sessions from Felix Schmidt, Carlene McCubbin, Geoff Nielson, and Jeremy Roberts.
Media Access to Info-Tech LIVE 2025
For media inquiries, including requests for interviews with featured speakers and experts to discuss what has been revealed at LIVE 2025 or for access to session recordings and additional content, please contact pr@infotech.com.
For conference-related press releases and images, please visit the online Info-Tech LIVE 2025 Media Kit.
About Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world's leading research and advisory firms, proudly serving over 30,000 IT and HR professionals. The company produces unbiased, highly relevant research and provides advisory services to help leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For nearly 30 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
To learn more about Info-Tech's divisions, visit McLean & Company for HR research and advisory services and SoftwareReviews for software-buying insights.?
Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and hundreds of industry analysts through the firm's Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact pr@infotech.com.
For information about Info-Tech Research Group or to access the latest research, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn and X.
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SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group
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