AI is driving a major change in leadership dynamics between CIOs and CEOs of some companies. 31% of US technology leaders report that CEOs are working more closely with CEOs and CIOs than they were a year ago. Report“By the urgency that brings AI-driven transformation.”
This finding comes from reports from managed network provider Expereo and research firm IDC, based on IDC's Technology Leader Survey 2025. The survey reports that 650 IT decision makers and influencers, including CIOs and CTOs, are more than $500 million in companies with over 500 employees, with over 500 employees, from five countries.
Other survey data confirm the impact of AI on the role of CIOs. 79% of respondents from IDC Survey Technology Leaders said that the company's focus on AI has raised its personal profile at the board level. 76% said they were confident that they and their teams can support the organization's growth and efficiency through technology strategies.
Martina Longo, research manager for EMEA Digital Business, digital native at IDC and co-author of the report, said the behind the change in roles is growing approval between the CEO and the executive committee that AI is based on core business outcomes, from operational efficiency to revenue growth.
“As a result, CEOs are more proactively supporting digital initiatives and working closely with CIOs to form AI strategies, governance frameworks and implementation plans,” Longo told InformationWeek. “Both CEOs and boards expect that the transformational potential of AI will strengthen the organization's resilience and increase competitiveness.”
Dan Carpenter, CIO and SVP of GTM Strategy, can demonstrate that the operation of GTM strategies and operations at the product analytics platform company's amplitude will increase the impact of CIO expertise. “The relationship between CIOs and management is becoming even more important to using technology to create differentiation, productivity, or competitive advantage,” he said.
(Source: Amplitude) Dan Carpenter is the CIO and SVP of GTM Strategy and Operations at Product Analytics Platform Company's Amplitude.
The entire Amplitude executive team is deeply interested in how AI can be used on a variety of workflows and employee bases, starting with the CEO, Carpenter said. He cited a recent review in Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates to discuss the advances the organization has made in hiring AI to improve internal productivity and deliver customer outcomes faster.
“I think all CIOs today are really leaning in how they can leverage technology to solve large business problems and need to be proactive. That's our goal,” he said.
The impact of CIOs is projected to grow
The growing influence of CIOs may not be mitigated in the near future, at least based on their enterprise spending intentions. Data analytics and AI are one of the most forefront technologies for an organization. 37% of respondents in the IDC survey said that data analysis or AI will prioritize both in terms of effort and financial investment over the next 12 months. The priorities of this technology are just behind networking/connections (43%) and security/cybersecurity (38%).
“The role of technology leaders is increasingly intertwined with business strategy and growth objectives,” says Longo, with AI reinforcing that trend. “In fact, 48% of technology leaders surveyed agree that their role will become even more important in the coming years. They agree not only to drive IT modernization and cost optimization, but also to directly contribute to business growth and revenue generation by demonstrating the impact of technology on the business.”
The expansion of the role of technology leaders will include tracking ROIs in digital technology investments, with AI initiatives at the heart of that task. IDC predicts the rise of “digital business leaders,” the role of CIOs leading the digital transformation across the enterprise, working closely with the line of business leaders to improve organizational agility and produce concrete results.
“It's worth noting that 78% of respondents agree. The current pace of innovation makes this an exciting time to become a technology leader,” Longo said.
Carpenter's role in amplitude evolved into “both the role of CIOs and their role to the market, a kind of fusion into an operational and technical leader,” and “it's a lot of fun.”
“We're looking to bring both of these capabilities into one place and accelerate our business by not only leveraging technology, but driving strategy, processes and execution across the entire team that's on the market,” he said.
Who is the AI Chief Executive?
Last year, 28% of US technology leaders predicted that the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) would absorb much of the CIO's responsibility within two years, but 86% of US companies do not employ CAIOs. Longo explains that companies are in different stages of AI adoption and maturity, and IDC data reflects that only a few organizations have appointed CAIOs.
“This role [of CAIO] Today, it's more common in technology companies than end-user companies,” Longo said. [at non-tech companies] Assigning existing technology leaders, such as CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs, AI-related responsibilities to existing technology leaders, depending on their existence and organizational structure. ”
One technology company that brought CAIO Nokia, who recently appointed Pallavi Mahajan As the company's top technology and AI executive. Nokia has also established two new teams: Technology and AI Organizations (TAO) and Corporate Development Organizations (CDO) to support the company's AI, security and business development strategies.
Carpenter is not a fan of this approach. Some large companies that may be valuable to appointing CAIOs said they consider AI adoption an integral part of the CIO's role.
“I would like to think that the role of CIOs is really leveraging technology to increase their business advantage. AI is an important part of that,” Carpenter says. “So I think creating different roles outside of the CIO and doing the same job as the CIO is a bit of a disenfranchising to do that within AI.”
He added that in his role as CIO of amplitude, he brings together several teams to deploy AI such as operations, enablement, technology, and data teams. Appointing a CAIO can lead to overlapping team and AI efforts. This is “is a problem when trying to create a central data source to enable AI. I don't have multiple teams trying to create multiple different data sources.”
Not all companies appoint CAIOs, but their responsibility for positions, such as AI strategy, governance, and implementation definition, is to “stay here.”
She continues, “Whether managed by newly created roles or integrated into existing roles, AI leadership is becoming a permanent fixture in the enterprise environment.”
