CIOs risk being sidelined in enterprise AI initiatives
Executive Take
The CIOs who survive this reorganisation will be the ones who claim AI governance questions output ownership, review, rollback before a CAIO or CEO does; those defending IT budgets as cost centers are already losing the argument.
Executive Summary
CIOs risk losing authority over AI initiatives as organizations create chief AI officer (CAIO) roles or hand AI strategy to CEOs. IBM's Institute for Business Value found 76% of surveyed organizations now have a CAIO, up from 26% in 2025. Experts including Debbie Madden (Stride), Dustin Engel (Elegant Disruption), and Ken Ringdahl (Emburse) discuss why CIOs get sidelined and how to avoid it.
Why It Matters
Technology and HR leaders alike should watch this power shift closely: it determines who controls AI budgets, governance, and organizational design as CAIO roles proliferate, and it reshapes how CIOs are evaluated and compensated going forward.
Bizquad Perspective
The IBM stat CAIO adoption tripling in a year suggests this isn't a slow structural drift but a rapid land grab, and CIOs who wait for their existing mandate to naturally expand will find the title created around them instead.