Do you need a chief artificial intelligence officer?
In the future, depending on the company size and business type, many organizations will need to consider adding the role of chief artificial intelligence officer. While a full-time dedicated position might seem to be excessive now, the role of a senior leader who is deeply knowledgeable in the broad domain of artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming critical.
The chief AI officer is tasked with providing strategic and tactical guidance and support for exploring AI methodologies. This role would also serve as the evangelist for the process, people and tools that can help achieve real business results with AI or human intelligence augmentation.
Since artificial intelligence, and with it machine learning, is a broad and cross-cutting capability, this individual can focus across the landscape, and research and dig deep into the possible advantages and opportunities to aid business objectives.
Where does the chief AI officer fit in?
Organizations should understand the most appropriate area for inserting the chief AI officer. For example, in organizations where AI and ML can help solve internal optimization or business efficiency problems, the chief AI officer could be an executive within the COO’s group.
Conversely, for those organizations where AI and ML is a capability within their product revenue streams, the role would have a revenue-generating (as opposed to cost optimization) impact and could be placed with the chief product or chief technology team.
There are several good options for where to place this job that will impact the leadership structure of a company. But the best choice depends on the strategic expectations and impacts that AI and ML capabilities will bring to the overall organization.
For smaller organizations, the role might exist as an extension of the data science or analytics organization, using data engineering to promote the development of learning and predictive capabilities.
Don’t believe the hype—Or do
There is significant new hype around AI and ML which can undermine the productive and beneficial uses of these technologies. But artificial intelligence and machine learning are a set of methods in computational science that have been in practice benefiting businesses for many decades.
For organizations exploring this role, review how it has been structured in other organizations and what has been expected (e.g.
