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Most CIOs Blow Past Cloud Budgets, Azul Survey Finds, Even as Majority Still See Cost Savings

• By John K. Waters
• March 26, 2025

A majority of U.S. chief information officers are overshooting their cloud budgets, with 83% spending an average of 30% more than planned, according to a new survey released this week by Java-focused software company Azul.  Only 2% of respondents reported coming in under budget.

Despite the overspending, 80% of CIOs still reported overall cost savings from their cloud investments, highlighting a paradox in cloud infrastructure planning. The findings, part of Azul’s The CIO Cloud Trends Survey & Report, underscore the growing complexity of managing cloud costs at scale.

The survey, conducted by Censuswide, polled 300 CIOs from large U.S. enterprises and revealed that, although cloud adoption continues to surge (71% of respondents said more than 60% of their workloads already run in the cloud), executives and boards are increasingly scrutinizing the rising costs.

"High-performance Java platforms give CIOs a powerful lever to optimize cloud costs," said Scott Sellers, CEO and co-founder of Azul, in a statement. "The key is not just embracing the cloud but continuously monitoring and optimizing it to maximize efficiencies without sacrificing application service levels."

Nearly half (43%) of CIOs said their CEOs or boards have raised concerns over cloud spending. About 27% said leadership would require favorable market conditions before expanding their cloud footprint, while 9% said further expenses were being blocked altogether.

Still, 56% of CIOs said their leadership supports current spending levels and would approve additional cloud investment, citing benefits such as scalability, flexibility, and AI and machine learning capabilities. AI/ML and data analytics were the top drivers of cloud adoption, followed closely by cost efficiency and workforce productivity.

To manage the escalating expenses, CIOs are increasingly turning to optimization tactics. These include modernizing workloads for cloud deployment (52%), using cloud provider cost management tools (51%), leveraging enterprise discount programs (49%), and adopting FinOps practices (32%).

Repatriation of workloads to on-premise infrastructure remains rare. Only 22% of CIOs plan to shift any workloads back to on-prem environments in the next year, and just 2% say company leadership is advocating such a move.

The report paints a nuanced picture of cloud infrastructure spending, one in which rising costs are tolerated—if not embraced—due to the transformative capabilities cloud platforms enable.