The big picture
Digital transformation is advancing across organizations, but progress remains uneven. While organizations continue to invest in modern technologies, few have achieved a fully integrated, AI-driven environment. Many still operate with siloed systems, legacy infrastructure, and growing complexity around tools, automation, and AI adoption.
At the same time, organizations face increasing pressure to prove measurable returns from digital investments. Challenges such as budget limitations, security concerns, and misalignment between business and IT leaders continue to slow progress. This report explores how organizations in Latin America are managing these challenges, highlighting differences in maturity, key barriers, and the strategic decisions shaping transformation outcomes across industries, regions, and roles.
Who we surveyed
We surveyed 1,000 business and IT decision-makers representing a broad range of industries, including healthcare, retail, BFSI, education, manufacturing, and others.
Republic 150
Check out the data for your region or scroll down for the regional report
Digital transformation maturity
Across Latin America, organizations are divided mainly between legacy-heavy (30%), cloud-siloed (30%), and platform-centric (25%) stages in their digital transformation journey.
Only 14% of respondents across the region describe their organizations as AI-orchestrated.
Within this landscape, Brazil leads in the adoption of platform-centric and AI-orchestrated models, while Chile has the highest share of legacy-heavy organizations and the Dominican Republic leads in cloud-siloed environments.
As organizations continue to expand their digital ecosystems, the complexity of managing modern IT environments is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. Across the region, the 5 biggest infrastructure challenges that hinder the company's digital transformation are:
Ensuring security across increasingly complex environments
Controlling or optimizing infrastructure costs
Data management and storage complexity
Managing and integrating hybrid or multi-cloud and on-premises environments
Difficulty demonstrating measurable ROI from digital investments
When digital initiatives fail to meet expectations, the following were ranked as top reasons in each country:
Skill shortage
37% Brazil
Lack of cross-functional collaboration
38% Chile
Lack of cross-functional collaboration
40% Colombia
Budget constraints
37% Dominican Republic
Infrastructure limitations
43% MexicoFragmentation vs. unified visibility
Technology adoption across Latin America continues to expand, but many organizations are managing increasingly fragmented digital environments.
report actively using between 11 and 25 distinct point solutions, suggesting that organizations are building complex technology ecosystems rather than operating through unified platforms.
This trend is particularly pronounced in the Dominican Republic and Brazil, indicating a heavier reliance on multiple specialized tools to support operations:
Republic
(61%)
(54%)
(50%)
(48%)
(47%)
of respondents across the region, tool sprawl has increased operational complexity over the past two years. The effect has been felt most strongly in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Chile.
Technology solutions continue to play a central role in digital transformation strategies, but organizations across the region remain divided between adopting a best-of-breed multi-solution stack and a unified platform approach.
Brazil stands out as the only market where respondents show a stronger preference for combining both approaches, reflecting a more hybrid strategy toward long-term transformation.
multi-solutions stack A unified platform
approach Combination of both
The growing complexity of digital environments is also reshaping how organizations allocate technology budgets.
of respondents stated their organizations spend more on maintenance than on innovation, highlighting how operational demands continue to consume a significant share of IT investment.
report prioritizing innovation spending,
say budgets are evenly split between maintaining existing systems and driving new initiatives.
maintenance than innovation Equal budget for maintenance and
innovation More budget for innovation than
maintenance (Net)
Republic
Cybersecurity remains one of the top priorities for digital transformation, according to 42% of respondents, particularly in Brazil and Colombia.
In contrast, organizations in the Dominican Republic and Mexico are more focused on reducing technology fragmentation, while in Chile the main priority is improving operational efficiency and productivity.
| Overall | Brazil | Chile | Colombia | Dominican Republic | Mexico | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strengthening cybersecurity and risk resilience | 42% | 45% | 41% | 44% | 35% | 42% |
| Improving operational efficiency and productivity | 41% | 44% | 42% | 37% | 33% | 43% |
| Reducing technology fragmentation and the "tools management burden" through IT consolidation | 40% | 38% | 40% | 30% | 47% | 47% |
| Strengthening cybersecurity and risk resilience | Improving operational efficiency and productivity | Reducing technology fragmentation and the "tools management burden" through IT consolidation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 42% | 41% | 40% |
| Brazil | 45% | 44% | 38% |
| Chile | 41% | 42% | 40% |
| Colombia | 44% | 37% | 30% |
| Dominican Republic | 35% | 33% | 47% |
| Mexico | 42% | 43% | 47% |
AI reality vs. hype
AI readiness appears high across Latin America, with the vast majority of respondents claiming their organizations are prepared to adopt and scale AI technologies. Across all markets, 93% of decision-makers describe their current technology stack as AI-ready, suggesting strong confidence in existing digital capabilities and infrastructure.
Although organizations in Latin America say they are AI-ready, 61% of respondents agreed they have been struggling to translate AI investment into measurable business value. This challenge is felt most strongly in the Dominican Republic, Brazil, and Colombia.
Across Latin America, the top three most significant barriers to achieving AI ROI are:
Security and compliance returns
Lack of skilled AI and data talent
Unclear business use cases or ROI measurement
Cybersecurity and risk preparedness
Across Latin America, organizations are facing growing pressure to strengthen resilience against evolving threats while maintaining operational continuity and trust.
believe their organizations have experienced more successful attacks in 2025 compared to previous years.
As employees increasingly experiment with AI applications outside approved enterprise environments, organizations are becoming more cautious about the risks associated with uncontrolled usage and sensitive information exposure.
This concern is particularly strong in Mexico, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic.
The current level of concern regarding data leakage from employees using unauthorized GenAI tools compared to previous years.
Overall, 70%IT and business decision-makers alignment
respondents, both IT and business leadership teams are aligned on digital transformation priorities.
At the same time, there are small proportion of organizations reporting misalignment which highlights gaps that still remain in areas such as investment priorities, technology adoption strategies, and expectations around business outcomes. As digital transformation efforts become more complex and AI-driven, sustained collaboration between business and IT teams will likely play a critical role in enabling faster decision-making, smoother execution, and more measurable results.
Conclusion
Digital transformation is evolving across Latin America. Executives are dealing with long-standing gaps, such as skills shortages and the increase in cyberattacks, while also facing new challenges in operational complexity, such as tool fragmentation.
In this landscape, organizations must manage their budgets across maintenance and innovation. Meanwhile, they must be measuring AI investments and addressing the unauthorized use of technology by employees.
To navigate today's IT environment and deliver solid results, it's necessary for IT leaders to build alliances with business decision-makers and ensure that all areas of the organization are working toward the same goals, such as strong governance, clear policies, and ecosystem simplification.
Digital transformation is advancing across Latin America as executives balance persistent challenges like skills shortages and rising cyberattacks with growing operational complexity, including tool fragmentation. To deliver results, IT leaders must align budgets between maintenance and innovation, measure AI investments, address unauthorized technology use, and work closely with business decision-makers to strengthen governance, policies, and ecosystem simplification.
Discover the current state of digital transformation across Latin American enterprises (2026)
