Why CIOs Are The Secret Weapon In Enterprise AI Adoption

The fight over AI isn’t just happening in the marketplace – it’s happening within organizations.

Efforts to adopt the technology and figure out how to use automation and orchestrate to transform the business have created new tensions, particularly between end users and IT teams that aren’t used to working so closely alongside one another. And amid this turmoil, there's a leadership vacuum emerging in many enterprises that threatens to derail investments.

In fact, 68% of executives claim Generative AI adoption has created new divisions in their organizations, according to a Writer survey. Meanwhile, as employee fears over AI’s impact on their careers grow, 41% are “actively sabotaging” their organization’s AI strategy, per the results.

Organizations need a unifying force that can work with other company leaders to link their desired AI goals with the right underlying technology, as well as build trust in AI among the entire workforce – from senior executives down to associates – to ultimately deliver results for the business.

“Generative AI has just reinforced the need to have a technology and digital leader that understands business mission and outcomes, and how they are connected together,” Lisa Davis, former CIO of Blue Shield of California, told the Wall Street Journal.

And few are better suited for this than Chief Information Officers.

Today, CIOs spend more time preparing for board room meetings than they do writing code. Research shows that CIOs are instrumental to success at digital modernization efforts. And AI in particular requires the unique blend of business acumen and technical know-how that many CIOs have spent the past decade honing.

It’s why 80% of CIOs are responsible for researching and evaluating AI products, according to a survey from CIO.com. It’s also why about 63% of CIOs and other tech leaders also now report directly to the CEO, per a Deloitte survey. And it’s why CIO salaries are only going up.

Amid rapid transformation in the responsibilities and purview of the role, below is advice from leading CIOs and other IT leaders on navigating the change successfully to ultimately become data and AI-driven.

• No data laggards left behind: “Data really knows no function. It sits in your marketing organization, your HR organization; it sits everywhere. You have to develop a strategy when you're transforming where you have an integrated way to welcome everyone to the data dance,” Steve Brodrick, founder and CEO of Horizon Five, said on a recent episode of the “New Automation Mindset” podcast.

• Be visible: “In the CIO role, I am front and center facing off with my business colleagues really understanding strategy, helping define it, challenging ways of doing things,” Kathleen Kay,  executive vice president and CIO of Principal Financial Group, told Information Week.

• Use transformation as an opportunity to reimagine everything: “You have to think about the transformation that’s ahead, the change management, also your own beliefs about how things should work and how they’re now evolving,” Monica Caldas, executive vice president and CIO at Liberty Mutual Insurance, told MIT Sloan Management Review. “That takes courage, to reimagine the art of the possible.”

• Find your AI champions outside IT: “If you can tap into one, or two, or three individuals outside your team in the business who are tech savvy, who want to be involved, and you empower them, you enable them, they will be your biggest assets,” iCIMs CIO Keyur Ajmera said on a recent episode of the “New Automation Mindset” podcast.

• Use the whole technology toolkit: "My approach to AI includes traditional AI, generative AI, agentic AI, and business automation -- using any and all of these tools in concert to help transform IBM's business into a digital operating model," IBM CIO Matt Lyteson told InformationWeek. "While there are some incredible new AI capabilities, one thing hasn't changed -- it's best to take a holistic view rather than simply deploy another tool."

• Get comfortable with being uncomfortable: “Even with technology, a lot of applications still rely on a human component. With artificial intelligence and some of the newer technology that's coming out, it requires us to get more comfortable with automation in ways that we haven't had to deal with in the past” Tim Crawford, CIO strategic advisor at AVOA, told the “CXO Talk” podcast.

• Create a culture of experimentation: “You want people to use their imagination. You want people to bring that creativity in because ultimately, that's what leads to change within an organization and potential ways for your organization to differentiate yourself from your competition,” said Tim.