NASCIO Voices
NASCIO Voices
State CIOs Top Ten Priorities and Technologies for 2026
Alex and Amy are joined by NASCIO's Eric Sweden to hear all about the NASCIO Top Ten lists for 2026. There's a big change to the #1 spot this year! We also get some historic perspective on the top issues and technologies, and as always get to hear Eric play the guitar!
https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/state-cio-top-ten-policy-and-technology-priorities-for-2026/
Hi and welcome to NASIO Voices, where we talk all things state IT. I'm Amy Glasscock in Lexington, Kentucky.
Alex Whitaker:And I'm Alex Twitter in Washington, D.C. Today is the big day. The NASIO top 10 list for 2026 is out.
Amy Glasscock:And boy, we have a lot to talk about, including some big news. Joining us is our own program director for enterprise architecture and governance, Eric Sweden. Eric, thanks so much for coming back to the podcast.
Eric Sweden:And thanks for having me. Always fun to do this with YouTube.
Amy Glasscock:It is. Okay, so believe it or not, this is the seventh year in a row that we've had you on the podcast to talk about the NASIO top ten. But for our newer listeners, remind us what the NASIO top ten lists are and why we do them.
Eric Sweden:Very good, Amy. It's always good to revisit how this came about because you know we have many new members as we go through from year to year, and even new listeners from our existing membership. So it's good to revisit this to give a little background. The top 10 is an idea Doug Robinson started back in 2006 as a way to gauge what the state CIOs consider their highest priority challenges for the coming year, in this case 2026. So that would then help NASIO to ensure what we do is in alignment with what our state CIOs, our prime members, need. And what our state CIOs need aligns with clearly the state governor's agendas, which would align with the demands and needs of our citizens. So, in essence, we at NASIO are serving our citizens, our country, we're on mission, and the top 10 is one of the ways we make sure we are ensuring effective alignment with what's relevant. The annual state CIO Top 10 priorities is also a critical message to the marketplace, the media, and our strategic partners. The state CIO Top 10 has historically been the singular most important message we send to anyone regarding state government. That information is presented on this list, and it provides a view to the next year's anticipated focus areas. So we do a top 10, not a top 20 or 30. These are the highest priorities on the agenda for the state CIO, but not the only priorities. And in 2008, Doug added the technology top 10 to the ballot for the very same reasons. The first year of this technology priority list was the following year in 2009. So we've been the steward of this process for the past, wow, 20 years. It's interesting to see the trends over that time, Amy.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah, it sure is.
Alex Whitaker:Right, absolutely, Eric. So tell us, what are the big highlights for 2026 on the top 10 strategies, management, processes, and solutions list? I understand there's a big headline this year.
Eric Sweden:Yeah, there is, and uh very good point. We're looking into the next year, 2026. Most striking, Alex, is artificial intelligence arriving at number one, displacing cybersecurity, which held the number one ranking for 12 years in a row. So cyber security comes in number two. So this is this is showing the incredible impact of all of the various epics, iterations of artificial intelligence, Agenic AI, Gen AI, et cetera, et cetera. The new ones are coming. Overall, nine of the strategy priorities are the same. Workforce drops off after after being on the list for five consecutive years, consolidation optimization returns to the list, and the last time it was on the list was 2023.
Alex Whitaker:Got it. Awesome. So what other changes do we see on the top ten for 2026?
Eric Sweden:Well, here's an overview, Alex. So budget cost control moves into the number three rank for 2026, up from number six in for 2025. Cybersecurity, as we stated, is in the number two ranking position. Shifting down from its history is number one for the twelve years we mentioned. And what displaced it is artificial intelligence. The top three are still the top three, though. They shifted around cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital government. They're all three riding together still. For 2026, accessibility moves up from number 10 in 2025 when it first arrived on the list, and now it moves to number six for 2026. Data management and analytics drops down in the list from number four in 2025 to number eight in 2026. Identity management is on the list at number seven, and it has been on the list every consecutive year starting in 2021. Digital government is at number five, and it has been on the list every consecutive year starting in 2018. Identity management and digital government, they essentially are traveling together. They enable each other. Cloud services has been on the list every consecutive year starting in 2011. It has been as high as ranking number two for next year, 2026, it's number 10. So there's our overview, Alex, of the biggest highlights for the strategy list.
Amy Glasscock:One thing I did want to point out was uh the but the budget, and I think that's interesting because uh a few years ago when we were getting all of this federal funding post-pandemic and things, budget I think either went really low or dropped off the list for a bit and then it came back on and now it's creeping back up again. So it's interesting to see that shift.
Eric Sweden:Yes. We're we're uh seeing states are very concerned about uh federal funding and uh budget are certainly showing uh that concern.
Amy Glasscock:That's right. Okay, so let's talk about the other lists that we publish along with the strategy lists, the top ten technologies, applications, and tools list. What are the most interesting findings from that one?
Eric Sweden:Okay, Amy, on the technology list, low code, no code dropped off. And we had lots of dialogue about that over the over the last few years. Automated fraud detection comes off the top top ten list for 2026. Note, some years we've combined data analytics and data management. Both data management and data analytics are again on the list as separate top ten priorities for both 2025 and 2026. So we can see a change here. Clearly, state CIOs put high emphasis on insight-enabling analytics, and we've published a lot on this. For 2026, data analytics sustains at number nine. Data management drops from number five to number eight. Um artificial intelligence is in the number one rank on the technology list, and it's been on that technology list every consecutive year starting in 2020. After AI, there's a combination of three technologies that have shifted their positioning but are still clustered in the positions of two, three, four. So application modernization remains at number two. Cloud services moves from number four to number three for 2026, and identity management moves from number three to number four for 2026. Security Enhancement Tools retains its ranking at number six. ERP moves from number eight to number seven. Automated fraud detection drops off, and networking comes back on the list for number ten. I don't know why that is. But anyway, recall automated fraud detection arrived for the first time in 2025, which would probably fit with you know the emphasis on gen AI, et cetera. Um it's been considered uh that is probably due to the increase in the volume and the sophistication of cyber threats, Amy.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah, that's a good point. So you've you've talked a little bit about comparing where things are with last year's, but um we would love to just dive into that a little bit deeper about how the current lineup compares with past years and and how much consistency there is year to year regarding what we see present on these top ten lists.
Eric Sweden:Very good uh question, Amy. And for just looking at trends, when we look at the entire history of the top ten strategy list and the frequency of some of the subject areas, we observe the following. For eight of the top ten, uh, there's a lot of frequency over time. So these are persistent technology priorities. The new topics from a historical perspective are artificial intelligence and all of its various iterations and accessibility. However, cybersecurity has been on the list twenty times, consolidation and optimization eighteen times, budget and cost control and cloud services have both presented on the top strategy list for 16 times. Modernization has been on the list 10 times, digital government has been on the list nine times, and finally data management and analytics have been on the list in some form twelve times over the history of this uh top ten strategies. You want to look at the at the last five years, Amy, and see what that did? Sure. Okay, well, here's the here's an interesting uh trend over the last five years. So cybersecurity and risk management, cloud services, data management analytics and its various iterations, legacy modernization, digital government, digital services, identity management and access management, those have been on the list over the last five years every year. Workforce has been on four times in the last five years. Consolidation optimization has been on the list three times, along with budget, broadband, and artificial intelligence three times over the last five years. So that's a look over the last five.
Amy Glasscock:You know, I'm so glad that we do this. I how fun would it be to go if we had been doing this the whole time NASIO existed and we could go back and look at the top 10 lists from the 1970s or the 1980s, you know? So uh one day somebody will be able to look back at 30, 40 years of top ten lists and they'll have a historical perspective. Yeah, yeah. It's like a time capsule.
Eric Sweden:We wonder, Amy, what's gonna be new on that list?
Amy Glasscock:I know, yeah.
Alex Whitaker:I mean, I just can't wait for next year to see if uh AI is still number one. I if I were betting, I'd bet it would be.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah.
Eric Sweden:Well, I'm also looking for this one, Alex. Quantum computing and then quantum AI. I'm wondering when that's gonna show up.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah, yeah.
Alex Whitaker:Well, all right, Eric, thank you so much for giving us an overview. I know it will be really interesting to see how these rankings drive the work we do at NASIO in 2026. But um, you know that before we let you go, we do have a few lightning round questions for you. Are you ready? I think so.
Eric Sweden:Go ahead.
Amy Glasscock:All right. Do you have a favorite holiday movie?
Eric Sweden:You know, I think that would have to be It's a Wonderful Life.
Amy Glasscock:Yes.
Eric Sweden:Another one, Christmas Lodge. So you know, there's a couple I really like.
Amy Glasscock:Nice. Uh my daughter was actually just in the play, It's a Wonderful Life. So Yeah, that's a great story.
Alex Whitaker:Uh, do you like to carefully wrap gifts or throw them in a gift bag? We like to carefully wrap them.
Amy Glasscock:That does not sound like a big thing.
Eric Sweden:So they're beautiful.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah. Yeah, me too. I I just carefully wrapped some gifts myself this weekend. All right. Are you more likely to have your Christmas lights plugged into smart outlets and timers, or are you more of a classic plug-in string light person?
Eric Sweden:Well, that changed over the years. Actually, uh in later years here, uh, we've had things plugged into a timer.
Amy Glasscock:Yeah. Yeah, gotta love a timer. All right. So uh one last thing, as is our tradition for many years now. Eric will play some music on his guitar for us to close out NASIO voices for 2025. Eric, what have you chosen for us today?
Eric Sweden:Well, Amy, you and I like to pick out these old tunes, and here's an old one. This one is titled Londonderry Air. It's an Irish melody named for Londonderry County. And this melody, the interesting thing about it, is it's been used for many, many different lyrics over more than two hundred years, and even the melody has some variations, but it's a very old melody. Uh-huh. And given the many hymns that have used this melody, so I think it rather fits in the Christmas theme, Christmas Spirit. So we're gonna call it a Christmas song for this year. Now the arrangement I put together is based on a recording from my guitar teacher whom I never met, Chet Atkins. He did a rendition of this on his 1973 album. It was transcribed by J Dr. John Knowles, and I modified it a bit. I kept some of the main aspects, but I added some classical tremble and a bit of country. There's a little bit of a country accent here using what's called slip note method that was so well developed by Floyd Kramer on the piano. Anyway, I hope that you like it. It's got a little country styling to it, but with it, uh, we wish our members and our listeners a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous twenty twenty-six.
Amy Glasscock:Excellent. Thank you so much, Eric. We'll be back in the new year with Ayal Darman of Accenture to talk all about how citizens and state CIOs view the challenges of accepting citizen services.