Shaping enterprise leadership skills around emerging technologies can feel like a moving target. As the landscape of solutions and capabilities changes, so do enterprise needs.
The scope of the transformation AI can deliver requires someone who can comprehend this technology and understand how it fits into the rest of the organization, according to Rich Heimann, chief AI officer at SilverSky. Despite the potential upside of having a chief AI officer lead AI adoption, enabling the technology is actually a team sport.
"The chief AI officer role will be significant, but it really requires all hands: From security professionals, legal advisors, data scientists, operations managers, and other senior executives to really understand the challenges," said Heimann.
Heimann first became a chief AI officer in 2016 at cybersecurity firm Cybraics, and retained his title after SilverSky acquired the company last year. For the firm, Heimann works on enabling AI, as the company uses algorithms to root out false positives and ease alert fatigue in network monitoring.
"It's a little more practical, a little more problem-driven," said Heimann, describing his role. "It's really about how to get these oftentimes very tricky algorithms to work in the real world."
While the role of chief AI officer is not new, it's a new dawn for what it means to adopt AI, as interest in generative AI skyrockets across companies of different sectors and sizes. But companies must assess whether the appointment of a C-suite role dedicated to AI makes sense with broader company goals and the expectations of the technology.
Online mentions of chief AI officers date back at least seven years. In 2016, Landing AI CEO Andrew NG penned an article for the Harvard Business Review encouraging organizations to appoint chief AI officers in an effort to connect data with value.
For businesses still in the early stage of AI adoption, the role might be a stretch.
"If it's not your first time using AI and machine learning, and you believe that you've got a ton of applicability, then you should strongly consider a chief AI officer, maybe a center of excellence," said Stephen Andriole, a professor at Villanova University.
"The first recommendation I always make is, educate yourself," Andriole said.
What AI leadership looks like now
Despite years of enterprise AI adoption, chief AI officers aren't a common role within the modern company C-suite.
A LinkedIn report that analyzed half a million C-suite positions listed on user profiles didn't find chief AI officer among the top 10 positions, the company said in an email. The report instead found organizations moved quickly last year to appoint leadership positions focused on diversity, people, delivery and security.
For most organizations, AI falls under the purview of other technology leaders, often in the lower rungs of the corporate ladder.
"While the title might be floating out there, mostly what we're finding is that those that are leading AI are either chief technology officers or their heads of the data science organization," said Michele Goetz, VP, principal analyst at Forrester.
If companies feel the need to place greater emphasis on AI, they more often appoint an AI-focused role at the project level or add AI oversight functions to existing people within the organization, Goetz said.
A centralized figure can help organizations respond in time, especially in industry categories moving quickly with their adoption of AI. The medical field, for instance, is working to adopt AI throughout the whole scope of operations.
"They really need to reimagine the whole distribution, deployment, diagnostic procedures, all of that," Andriole said. "If it's a dynamic industry, where your competitors are really deploying this stuff, you better move quickly."
Some companies appoint a centralized C-suite figure focused on AI because they perceive the role as a competitive differentiator, Goetz said. It can also become a statement.
"It's a way also for that organization, particularly if they're public, to be able to answer to their investors, the board and just the market in general" in terms of their intentions around AI, according to Goetz.
But amid the hype around generative AI applications and their potential impact on enterprise ambitions, there's peril in rushing through leadership changes.
"My advice is to take your time," Heimann said, when asked what he would recommend CEOs thinking about appointing C-suite roles centered around AI.
Generative AI, the driving technology in the renewed interest around corporate use of AI, is not without its risks. There still doesn't exist a cohesive regulatory framework to guide companies as they wade through the possibilities of adoption.
"Organizations should thoughtfully assess the risks and potential of the technology, focusing on identifying use cases and starting by experimenting in low-risk areas without anxiety about missing out," said Heimann.
