Top IT Priorities for Financial Services in 2025

As artificial intelligence rapidly redefines professional and financial services, IT leaders are being tasked with more than just keeping the lights on. A newly released report from Info-Tech Research Group outlines six critical technology priorities that firms must tackle to remain competitive, compliant, and resilient in 2025’s unpredictable economic environment.

Titled Info-Tech’s Best Research for the Professional and Financial Services Sectors 2025, the report identifies actionable frameworks and strategies tailored to the sector’s unique challenges — from AI disruption to tightening compliance expectations.

Why It Matters

Financial and professional services firms operate in high-trust, high-stakes environments where operational risk, technology disruption, and demands for innovation are converging fast. Many are moving beyond traditional IT support roles, repositioning technology teams as proactive business enablers.

“Firms today are expected to deliver transparency, resilience, and performance while navigating AI’s disruptive influence,” says Gord Harrison, Chief Research Officer at Info-Tech Research Group. “Our research helps IT leaders lead through this uncertainty while building future-ready capabilities.”

Six IT Focus Areas for 2025

Here’s what’s topping the IT agenda for financial and professional services firms in the year ahead:

• Business-Aligned IT Strategy: Empowering IT to lead initiatives that directly support business goals, drive innovation, and enhance organizational credibility.
• Comprehensive Data Strategy: A business-first data governance approach aimed at improving decision-making and unlocking enterprise-wide value.
• Vendor Management Transformation: Implementing a streamlined, 90-day framework for better vendor oversight, strategic partnerships, and measurable business value.
• Holistic Information Security: Designing security programs that are fully aligned with business priorities while reducing operational and reputational risk.
• Responsible AI Governance: Deploying AI frameworks that balance innovation with risk management, compliance, and ethical use.
• Enterprise Data Governance: Building a governance model that embeds data accountability into the organizational culture and aligns with long-term business strategy.

The Big Picture

Info-Tech’s research acts as a strategic playbook for firms caught between rapid tech disruption and rising risk exposure. The key message? IT isn’t just a support function anymore — it’s a business driver that can steer organizations through volatility while delivering measurable outcomes.