The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released the State CIO Top 10 for 2025, with cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) topping the list.
The annual priorities list is voted by 50 state and territory chief information officers (CIOs) and has been published every year since 2007.
For this year’s ranking, cybersecurity reclaimed its spot as the only top priority for state CIOs. In 2024, cybersecurity tied with digital government services for the top spot. Artificial intelligence moved to the second spot and digital government is in third for 2025.
NASCIO said it uses the priority lists to develop strategic areas of focus for the coming year, formulate new issue forums and working groups, and plan NASCIO conference sessions and publications.
Other notable changes to the list include:
- Accessibility making its debut at number 10;
- Budget and cost control appears back on the list after dropping off after 2021;
- Legacy modernization falls one spot this year to number five;
- Workforce falls to number nine, down from number five in 2024; and
- Identity and access management and cloud services each climb up one spot.
The full ranking is:
- Cybersecurity And Risk Management
- Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Robotic Process Automation
- Digital Government/Digital Services
- Data Management and Analytics
- Legacy Modernization
- Budget/Cost Control/Fiscal Management
- Identity and Access Management
- Cloud Services
- Workforce
- Accessibility
NASCIO also released its priority technologies, applications, and tools for 2025:
- Artificial Intelligence/Robotic Process Automation
- Legacy Application Modernization/Renovation
- Identity and Access Management
- Cloud Solutions
- Data Management
- Security Enhancement Tools
- Low Code/No Code Software Development
- Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp)
- Data Analytics
- Automated Fraud Detection
