Security remains a top priority, taking the number one spot this year despite a slight decrease in the percentage of respondents who identified security as a priority. AI showed a slight but statistically significant increase from 2023 — suggesting that AI is increasingly becoming a primary focus for many organizations.
The number of respondents who identified a DevSecOps platform as an investment priority and the number of respondents who said their organizations are currently using a DevSecOps platform this year were similar to 2023, suggesting that interest and investment in DevSecOps platforms remains stable. Meanwhile, interest in automation saw a significant increase in 2024, with automation jumping from priority number six in 2023 to number four this year.
One of the biggest signals of the reshuffling of priorities is the fate of cloud computing: The cloud was the top priority in 2023, but this year it dropped to number five. However, it's clear that the cloud continues to be important — we saw a significant decrease year over year in the number of respondents who said they are running less than half of their apps in the cloud (68% in 2023 to 43% in 2024), and a corresponding increase in the number of respondents who said they are running 50% or more of their apps in the cloud (32% in 2023 to 55% in 2024). This suggests that while the cloud is still mission-critical for many businesses, it's now “table stakes” — and at the same time, the list of priorities for technical teams and IT leaders continues to grow.
Finally, while metrics and analytics didn't make the top five investment priorities this year, we did observe a significant uptick compared to last year (9% in 2023 to 12% in 2024), suggesting that this is an up-and-coming priority for organizations.