The study The State of Digital Transformation in Latin America 2026, based on a survey of 1,000 business and IT decision-makers across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, reveals a region that is moving forward, but still facing significant levels of fragmentation.
And this is the point that matters to us as a consultancy: data is not strategy. Strategy begins when an organization understands what is holding back its transformation and decides what to do about it.
These are the seven challenges that will shape the digital agenda of Latin American companies in 2026.
1. Digital maturity is stuck halfway
Thirty percent of companies in the region continue to operate under legacy-heavy models, with local and isolated systems. Another 30% are in a cloud-siloed environment, with multiple cloud solutions that are not necessarily connected to one another. Only 25% have reached a platform-centric model, based on more unified operations, while just 14% can be considered AI-orchestrated, with systems capable of operating through autonomous agents.
Brazil leads in digital maturity, while Chile has the highest proportion of organizations relying on legacy systems, and the Dominican Republic shows higher levels of cloud fragmentation.
What should companies do?
Before adding more AI, automation, or analytics tools, organizations need to understand how their technology ecosystem currently works: which platforms are being used, where they overlap, what information they share, and where the main points of friction are.
Transformation starts with a new tool and an architecture capable of supporting it.
2. IT complexity is consuming the space for innovation
Security (32%), infrastructure costs (26%), data management (25%), multi-cloud integration (25%), and difficulties measuring ROI (23%) are among the main barriers identified by leaders across the region.
But there is something even more relevant: the problem varies by market.
In Brazil, the main concern is talent shortages (37%). In Chile and Colombia, lack of collaboration between departments stands out (38% and 40%, respectively). In the Dominican Republic, budget constraints are a major concern (37%), while Mexico points to insufficient infrastructure (43%).
This shows that a regional strategy cannot be implemented as a one-size-fits-all template across every market.
Companies need to identify the real bottleneck.
If the problem is talent, the answer is probably not another platform, but developing internal capabilities. If collaboration is the issue, technology alone is unlikely to solve it: organizations need governance mechanisms that connect business and IT.
Technology should respond to the organization’s problem, not the other way around.
3. Tool sprawl is turning transformation into a source of complexity
More technology does not necessarily mean a more digital company. Fifty-two percent of organizations use between 11 and 25 different point solutions. At the same time, 81% of leaders acknowledge that this fragmentation has increased operational complexity over the past two years. The impact is even greater in the Dominican Republic (89%), Mexico (87%), and Chile (81%).
When each department adopts a tool to solve its own problem, an organization can end up with dozens of solutions that work individually but, collectively, generate more work, higher costs, and more silos.
Companies need to map their existing tools, identify redundancies, measure adoption, and determine which ones are actually generating business value.
4. Most of the budget is still being allocated to maintaining the present
This is one of the figures leaders should be most concerned about. Seventy-six percent of organizations allocate more budget to maintenance than to innovation. Only 9% prioritize investment in new initiatives.
In the Dominican Republic, the gap reaches 92% allocated to maintenance versus just 1% to innovation. The risk is not only financial. An organization that concentrates its resources on keeping what it already has running may eventually lack the capacity to build what it will need tomorrow.
In this context, every technology initiative should be able to answer three questions: What business problem does it solve? Which metric does it impact? And how will that impact be measured?
When the conversation with leadership is limited to infrastructure, licenses, or implementation, IT competes as a cost center. When it can demonstrate an impact on growth, efficiency, customer experience, or risk management, the conversation changes.
Innovation needs a business narrative as clear as its technology architecture.
5. Trust in AI is growing faster than its results
Ninety-three percent of the leaders surveyed believe they have an AI-ready technology stack. However, 61% acknowledge that they have yet to turn that investment into measurable value.
This gap is particularly relevant in the Dominican Republic, Brazil, and Colombia. The main barriers include security and compliance (19%), lack of specialized talent (17%), and unclear or difficult-to-measure use cases (15%).
The problem, then, does not appear to be a lack of interest in AI. It is the difficulty of turning AI into a business priority.
Before scaling an AI initiative, organizations should define three elements:
- A specific business problem.
- A person accountable for making decisions about the project.
- A metric that can demonstrate its impact.
An organization does not need to implement AI simply because the market is doing so. It needs to identify where AI can create a tangible advantage and prove it.
AI without a business case is experimentation. AI with clear objectives and metrics can become transformation.
6. Cybersecurity no longer ends with IT
Fifty-seven percent of the companies surveyed reported experiencing more successful attacks in 2025 than in previous years. The Dominican Republic (64%) and Colombia (58%) show some of the highest levels.
But another threat is also growing within organizations themselves: unauthorized use of generative AI by employees. Seventy percent of companies consider this practice a real risk for information leakage. Concern reaches 77% in Mexico, 74% in Brazil, and 73% in the Dominican Republic.
This means security must become a shared responsibility. That involves establishing clear policies on AI use, explaining what information can be shared and what must remain protected, training teams, and creating control mechanisms that support adoption.
Banning without educating does not eliminate risk. It can simply make it less visible.
That is why internal communication is no longer a complement to cybersecurity strategy. It becomes part of it.
7. Business and IT are aligned. Now they need to prove it through execution
There is one particularly positive finding: 91% of respondents believe that business and IT are aligned on digital transformation priorities.
The challenge is to turn that alignment into concrete ways of working: shared KPIs, joint committees, clearly defined responsibilities, regular monitoring, and, above all, internal communication capable of keeping the organization informed about what is changing, why it is changing, and what is expected from each team.
The challenge for 2026 is not to digitalize more
The data shows a region with strong digital ambition, but also a series of tensions that can limit the return on that investment: fragmented systems, tool sprawl, budgets concentrated on maintenance, AI initiatives without sufficient measurable impact, new cybersecurity risks, and a gap between strategic alignment and execution.
That is why, in 2026, the most important question for a company should be: “What needs to change in our business, and what role should technology play in making it happen?”
Because effective digital transformation does not happen when an organization adopts more technology. It happens when it manages to simplify operations, connect teams, accelerate decision-making, and turn technology investment into results that the business can recognize and measure.
And this is where technology, business, marketing, and communications stop working as independent functions.
Transformation needs strategy to define the direction, technology to make it possible, and communication to ensure the organization adopts it, understands it, and turns it into action.
In an increasingly competitive Latin American market, the ability to connect these three dimensions can become a true competitive advantage.