An annual survey by Beltug among Belgian CIOs shows AI to be a top priority once again. This time with a focus on control and scalability.
Belgian digital leaders no longer want to just experiment with AI, but also gain control over it. This is evident from the Beltug Priorities Compass 2026, the annual priorities survey in which more than 300 CIOs and IT managers from the private and public sectors participated this time. The three highest-scoring priorities all relate to artificial intelligence, a trend we also observed in previous Beltug surveys.
AI-related priorities
Of the 50 topics on the list, more than a quarter are AI-related. At the top is AI governance: 64 percent of business ICT users are looking for a framework to deploy AI ethically, explainably, and in compliance with legislation. This is followed by the integration and orchestration of AI within the organization’s operations, and dealing with the security risks of AI.
This shift aligns with what we already saw last year in the same survey, where the integration of AI into the IT environment topped the list. The emphasis is now shifting from adoption to control. “We are evolving from pilot projects and standalone use of AI applications to a momentum where strategic choices must be made,” says Ann Guinée, Communication Manager at Beltug. According to her, organizations want to establish a full-fledged AI policy, also because of the financial impact.
Regulations are pushing in the same direction. Since August, the transparency obligations from the AI Act have been in effect, requiring companies to map out their AI use. Project Manager Marieke Laeremans warns that governance and organizational maturity must grow at the same pace as ambitions. “All organizations are struggling with this.”
To the board of directors
Governance is the second common thread through the results. In addition to AI governance, reporting ICT topics to the board of directors and monitoring the IT strategy via measurable KPIs also score high. CIOs want to engage in dialogue with their directors about AI, data management, vendor lock-in, and cybersecurity—domains in which digitalization helps determine an organization’s strategy and risk profile.
According to Beltug, cybersecurity itself is becoming increasingly intertwined with other strategic themes. Attention is shifting from incident prevention to resilience, operational risk management, and business continuity: how do critical processes keep running when things do go wrong?
Dependency weighs heavier than ever
Digital sovereignty remains prominent. European organizations rely heavily on non-European cloud and software providers, and Beltug notes that CIOs are searching more intensively for alternatives. This picture is consistent with earlier research showing that Western European CIOs more often choose local cloud providers, although ambition often clashes with practice.
“Which critical data and applications do you want to provide extra protection for, for example, against access by foreign governments?”, Beltug CEO Danielle Jacobs summarizes the core question. Added to this is the question of how to prevent your cloud provider’s AI models from being trained on your own company data.
Finally, it is striking that a closer link between ICT and HR is high on the list. AI agents are potentially particularly disruptive to the way work is organized, and according to Jacobs, this requires HR policy and ICT strategy to be aligned.