Without CPOs in strategy discussions, AI ROI is quietly being undermined. If you look across the C-suite, the CTO brings technology. CFOs manage investments. But if CPOs don’t keep pace, organizations end up with advanced tools that no one can master and business cases that don’t translate. These three roles function as a symbiotic leadership loop and must work together. The CTO and CFO define what is possible and how much it will cost, and the CPO determines whether the organization can absorb, adopt, and accelerate it. If you separate them, you get the transformation “parallel play”. Connect them and you will get the result.
Part of the problem is structural, but part of it is how HR has been positioned historically. In many organizations, HR professionals are hired after important business decisions have been made, rather than early enough to help shape decisions. As a result, CEOs may feel that HR departments are slow to respond. Moving into a more proactive zone also requires a change in the mindset, capabilities, and way of working within the HR department itself.
HR departments need to reposition themselves to a more proactive, product-oriented mindset. This means treating employee capabilities not as a service to be provided, but as something to be continuously designed and iterated against real business outcomes. This also means that HR functions, particularly workforce planning and talent acquisition, are brought closer to business operations, where strategic decisions and competency conversations occur in real time.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening with Harvey. Harvey is a legal AI company recently valued at $11 billion and named one of Fast Company’s 2026 Most Innovative Companies. When former HubSpot CPO Katie Burke joined the company in late 2024, she wasn’t given traditional HR authority. Katie was responsible for human resources, communications, marketing, business technology, and customer engagement before being promoted to COO. While expanded scope is not a prerequisite for a CPO to be part of an AI steering committee, it does demonstrate that in the age of AI, the relationship between human and business decisions needs to be more structural than just relational. HR leadership becomes more integrated with how the business operates, grows and delivers results.
Organizations that succeed in transforming their business with AI are not those with the most sophisticated technology stacks. These will be the companies where CTOs, CFOs, and CPOs truly work closely together and actively engage the business to shape change, rather than waiting for HR to be told what is going to change.
