CIOs spent years combating for affect within the C-suite. AI secured CIOs a seat on the desk after which flipped it to a sizzling seat. CIOs are more and more held accountable for AI infrastructure and threat, at the same time as enterprise models select the use circumstances.
“That is a recipe for getting burned,” mentioned Vitaly Golomb, managing associate at boutique funding financial institution and advisory agency Mavka Capital, and the creator of “Accelerated Startup.”
Getting burned turned the development. How did it occur? Enterprises rushed AI adoption “with out establishing who owns what,” Golomb mentioned. The know-how additionally “moved quicker than governance frameworks,” leaving CIOs “liable for outcomes they cannot totally management,” he mentioned.
Nuha Hashem, CTO and co-founder, Cozmo AI
The AI ROI strain cooker
The gas feeding the fireplace beneath the CIO sizzling seat is cash, after all. Particularly, the place to seek out AI ROI and the way to depend it.
“For the final 18 months, CIOs have struggled to outline the ROI on use circumstances and created questionable calculations the place they multiply a couple of minutes of effectivity financial savings by the variety of folks in departments or organizations leading to nice debates [about] if it is a bottom-line saving or not,” mentioned Robi Gone, CIO of IFS, an industrial software program maker.
As 2025 progressed, CIOs had been more and more feeling the warmth, a development prone to persist into 2026 if accountability continues to outpace authority. Most firms seem caught on the trail of designating AI as a know-how drawback “when it’s basically an operating-model drawback,” mentioned AI technique advisor Karina Arteaga, founding father of Seen International and former Actuality Labs go-to-market lead at Meta.
The misalignment between accountability and authority created “an ideal storm: excessive expectations, low organizational readiness and fragmented decision-making.” Arteaga mentioned.
Including gas to the flames is a mismatch in how CIOs are judged of their work with AI, as in contrast with different enterprise leaders who’re choosing AI use circumstances. CIOs are “judged by how programs behave underneath actual visitors, not by early demos or small inner assessments,” mentioned Nuha Hashem, CTO and co-founder of Cozmo AI, a voice AI worker platform for regulated industries.
That hole creates strain, Hashem mentioned, as a result of “many groups weren’t prepared to clarify why a choice was made or how the AI ought to react as soon as it meets the precise circumstances of the enterprise.”
Clearly, one thing wants to vary for CIOs to have the ability to handle the scenario higher and thrive of their careers, too.
Technique for the CIO sizzling seat
The maxim “if you cannot win the sport, change the foundations” applies in full when CIOs are in search of a brand new and higher strategy to AI duties and their very own profession survival.
“CIOs who survive this second deliver the dialog again to how the work holds up when the enterprise applies stress,” Hashem mentioned. CIOs ought to ask for a “clear file of the logic behind every step,” she mentioned, to allow them to defend it to boards and outdoors companions.
“That behavior offers CIOs room to steer with extra confidence as a result of they will level to how the selections stood up in follow,” Hashem added.
Be specific about what IT owns and does not
As soon as the dialog is refocused on the logic path in choices and outcomes, CIOs can take extra steps to make sure a good redistribution of accountability.
“CIOs have to be specific about what they personal and what they do not,” Arteaga mentioned.
For instance, if advertising and marketing deploys a rogue AI instrument or a CEO mandates a use case that bypasses governance, “that’s not an IT failure,” she mentioned — and CIOs ought to say as a lot.
“The CIO’s job is to determine guardrails, to supply a framework, to not soak up the implications of ungoverned choices. Understanding that AI tasks are basically human tasks is important,” Arteaga added.
Reclaiming CIO authority
Past establishing accountability constructions, CIOs ought to work to increase their authority. Arteaga mentioned that CIOs can provoke this alteration once they “cease chasing pilots and begin constructing foundations.” This may be simply as self-protective as it’s protecting of the corporate.
“The most important threat to CIOs proper now’s permitting the enterprise to launch dozens of disconnected AI experiments. CIOs should shift the dialog from shiny instruments to enterprise structure, information readiness, compliance and end-to-end workflows,” Arteaga mentioned. “Robust foundations make AI scalable. Weak foundations make each failure appear to be an IT failure.”
Pace with guardrails
Strategically making use of the brakes on AI adoption, nonetheless, is probably not your greatest transfer. Slowing down on AI adoption is probably the most important threat {that a} enterprise can take, in keeping with Graeme Cantu-Park, CISO at Matillion, an clever information integration platform. CIOs “should not be that handbrake,” he mentioned. As an alternative, they need to “encourage [AI adoption] however make the dangers seen.”
“Implementing a ‘pace with guardrails’ strategy with encouragement of sandboxes of innovation, permits CIOs to make use of risk-profiling to prioritize governance efforts the place the organizational affect is highest, and sponsor [proofs-of-concept] PoCs to result in production-ready AI programs,” Cantu-Park mentioned.
Robi Gone, CIO, IFS
AI management as shared accountability
In the meantime, attempt to sidestep debates that do not remedy points. Get began and “do not get slowed down in countless ROI debates,” Gone mentioned. Subsequent, nail AI tasks to achievable, measurable enterprise targets.
“Begin with a single operational bottleneck that prices the enterprise time or cash. AI succeeds when it is fixing one thing particular,” Gone mentioned.
All through the transition to your new AI technique, do not lose sight of what issues. CIOs ought to “proactively associate with departments lagging behind on AI adoption” and display worth by connecting IT infrastructure affect on to enterprise targets, mentioned Vishal Grover, CIO at Apex Analytix, a supplier of provider onboarding, threat administration and restoration platforms.
“In the end, main from the new seat means focusing not simply on the know-how, but in addition on what dietary supplements know-how, to realize an efficient and significant affect on the enterprise as a complete,” Grover mentioned.
Almost certainly, meaning extra collaboration and sharing of accountability throughout the board.
“On this new period, the CIOs who will thrive are those who embrace AI management as a shared accountability,” mentioned Nik Kale, principal engineer at Cisco Techniques. “They’ll collaborate with CISOs on belief and security, with CTOs on structure, with attorneys on compliance, and with enterprise leaders on worth creation.”
