Editorial
Generative AI has the potential to transform most business functions, starting with marketing, and it could help redefine what value companies provide to the customer. Great examples of the potential for industrial organizations are provided in the coming book “Fusion Strategy.”
With this said, one thing is clear, adoption is happening quickly. In terms of the pace of adoption, a Gartner survey of 1,400 executive leaders in the third quarter of 2023 found 45% reported that their organization is piloting or experimenting with generative AI and another 10% had already gone live with solutions. This is amazing for a technology that most executive leaders had never heard of before OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT dominated news coverage.
Why Gen AI Needs the CIO and CDO Together
Generative AI represents a convergence of data, analytics and innovative applications. This fusion is not merely a collaboration, but a unification of disciplines, where the chief information officer (CIO) and chief data officer (CDO) roles are pivotal, which a group of CIOs recently discussed in a chat on X. Together, they spearhead generative AI initiatives that revolutionize customer experiences, spawn novel products and services, forge fresh digital business models and drive customer-centric innovation. Their joint efforts are crucial in sculpting a robust underlying data strategy.
Jova Financial Credit Union CIO Dennis Klemenz says, “The underpinnings of GenAI is data. GenAI is the application of data to problems. GenAI is the marriage of those two disciplines.”
Historically, CDOs have grappled with limitations in resources, reach, data access and infrastructure, hindering the establishment of a potent digital presence. However, the generative AI paradigm is a game-changer, hinging on the dual pillars of data integrity — overseen by the CDO — and the extraction of value, orchestrated by the CIO. This dual stewardship is essential to balance the pursuit of opportunity with the imperative of risk mitigation. Generative AI demands a collective endeavor, necessitating an all hands-on-deck approach. As we embark on this new chapter, it symbolizes the evolution of existing practices, where the enhanced data landscapes cultivated by CDOs and the technological acumen fostered by CIOs together leverage literacies, practices and governance to capitalize on emerging opportunities.
Steve Jones, an EVP at Capgemini, says, “This is not just the CIO and CDO, there are a lot of stakeholders who need to work together. If we are looking at a future where AI is fundamental to the business, this is more than just the CIO and CDO but that is a good place to start.”
Isaac Sacolick, president of StarCIO, says, “GenAI is all about the intersection of data quality (CDO) and value (CIO) while mitigating risks. We need to add the chief risk/privacy officer to the mix. No collaboration — and either data, value or risk gets compromised. Your AI is as good as your data, so the CDO needs to be on board. And GenAI is new, needs onboarding a lot of new technology with risks associated, so the CIO needs to be on the same page.”
Jim Russell, CIO of Manhattanville College, says, “GenAI is a new chapter, should represent a progression of an existing practice where CDOs have improved the data landscape and, working with the CIOs, the literacies, practices and governance can now exploit the opportunities.”
Joanne Friedman, CEO and principal of Connektedminds, says, “If the AI visioner, the CIO, has no strong data strategist supporting them, then they are like an emperor or empress with no clothes.”
Division of Labor Between CIOs and CDOs
The demarcation of responsibilities between the CIO and CDO is a dance of strategic collaboration and operational distinction. CDOs helm the ship of data strategy, management and governance, while also playing a role in DataOps, ensuring that data not only flows, but is also well-curated and compliant. On the other side of the coin, CIOs are the navigators of data consumption, support, security and integration, with a shared hand in DataOps to facilitate the seamless application of data in business processes. Both parties converge on the fronts of data innovation and organizational transformation, interlinking their skills to drive the company forward.
Anthony McMahon, enterprise architect at Target State Consulting, suggests that the CIO is not a solitary role, but a collective of competencies, hinting at an office of the CIO concept, where clarity and agreement on roles dispel any labor division concerns. He believes CIO, CDO and chief information security officers (CISOs) all need to have an agreement on their parameters.
Isaac Sacolick with StarCIO views the CIO as the chief digital trailblazer, a multi-faceted role requiring evolving skills and the ability to pull others into the digital age through influence and relationships.
Clearly, the relevance of the CDO and CIO is dictated by their tasks — from data matching digital realities to achieving business outcomes.
Russell with Manhattanville College echoes this sentiment, stating the lines of influence will be fluid amidst the rapid advancements in generative AI, with the necessity for some CDOs to engage more closely with CIOs.
Friedman with Connektedminds delineates the roles within the AI context: the CIO as the visioneer, strategist, steward, ethicist and digital transformation ally, while the CDO focuses on data modeling to deliver expedited time to value. This duality of vision and execution encapsulates the dynamic interplay essential for harnessing the transformative power of generative AI.
Jones with Capgemini says, “The division of labor depends on the leaders. If the CDO is tasked with ensuring that data matches the digital reality, the CIO can achieve the business outcomes. This still requires the business to own that reality and deliver outcomes against it. However, if the CDO is just about reporting and post-transactional data, then they are mostly irrelevant for GenAI. Meanwhile, if the CIO is all about operations and the current state, then they have all the relevance. If however, the CIO is more fixated on uptimes and operational costs of systems and services and the CDO is about analytics and business outcomes, then the importance is reversed. We are going to see a lot of change in these roles due to GenAI.”
See more: Using Generative AI to Transform IT Service Desk Functions
Leading Change Management
The dawn of generative AI is poised to reshape the landscape of work and employee experience, demanding a leadership that is as much about cultural nuance as it is about technological savvy.
McMahon with Target State Consulting casts doubt on whether CIOs, traditionally the harbingers of technical change, are the natural leaders for the seismic shift that generative AI represents. The transformation at hand is deeply human and cultural, requiring a maestro of organizational change. The CIO, while experienced in leading technical change, must collaborate with those who have a deft touch in steering the human elements of the organization.
Russell with Manhattanville College, however, envisions the CIO as a central figure, akin to the eye of a needle through which threads of employee experience (EX), customer satisfaction, technology disruption and infrastructure must pass. Yet, this cannot be a solo act — it demands a concerted effort aligned with the broader business requirements.
Jones with Capgemini presents a caveat: Only CIOs who have championed real digital change can lead in the generative AI era. Otherwise, they risk obsolescence, much like the IT heads of yesteryears who were too data center centric. The future calls for CIOs to morph into drivers of transformation, ensuring IT is embedded across the board, thereby reducing the need for centralized IT.
The dialogue isn't about whether the CIO can lead change — they can — but rather, if they should lead the generative AI transformation alone.
Constellation Research VP Dion Hinchcliffe points out that while the digital employee experience is a complex tapestry of hundreds of applications that the CIO is best positioned to untangle, the task is formidable. Hinchcliffe says, “CIOs still are [the] best role to lead AI, but it will not be easy. Many CIOs will not even fight the turf war. They will just run off and do GenAI in their corner.” However, “without a united front, the risk of siloed GenAI initiatives is high.”
Sacolick with StarCIO anticipates a struggle over who will take the reins, though initially, it seems to rest with the CIO. However, as Friedman with Connektedminds notes, “implementation should be a team sport. The CIO may excel at managing change but may lack certain competencies today critical for GenAI.”
Klemenz with Jova Financial Credit Union delivers a starker perspective: “CIOs should adapt or step aside. For the CIO, leading GenAI isn’t an option; it’s an imperative. GenAI isn't just another technology to be managed; it's a revolutionary force that requires a CIO to be at the vanguard of applying this technology to solve business problems. Success requires a CIO who doesn’t just understand the technological landscape but also masters the art of applying it strategically to redefine the very nature of work and the structure of the organization.”
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Jones with Capgemini agrees and says, “The risk for CIOs is that they go the way of the data center IT heads of 15 years ago. Leading in this change is the only way to remain relevant. If I was a CIO looking to the future, I’d be seeing how I could transition from my current role to one that drives this transformation, because the objective of GenAI transformation is absolutely to put IT everywhere and thus, minimize the value of central IT.”
Managing Expectations
The collaborative dynamic between a CIO and a CDO is pivotal to managing the lofty expectations of CEOs and boards. The CIO, with a robust understanding of the IT infrastructure and technological capabilities, and the CDO, with their finger on the digital pulse and customer experience (CX), must sync to become a pragmatic yet visionary force.
Jones at Capgemini says CIOs and CDOs should “be aggressive on the opportunity, be honest about the challenges and don’t drink the Kool-Aid. They should be the voice of reason, but from a perspective where change is inevitable. We are moving to a world where 50% of decisions will be made by AI, and the rest will be supported by it. The CIO and CDO have the responsibility to make sure their company makes it to that place and is in control of the AIs that are making the decisions. Use the hype to shape a realistic direction, there are too many examples of success to claim that change isn’t going to happen.”
Given this, we should imagine them as co-pilots of a vessel headed into the uncharted waters of AI's future. They need to steer the ship with a hand each on the wheel, the CIO ensuring that the sails—legacy systems and IT teams—are catching the winds of change efficiently, while the CDO scans the horizon for opportunities to navigate towards. They must present a united front to the CEOs and boards, translating the technical jargon into the language of business impact and strategic advantage.
Hinchcliffe with Constellation Research claims, “the board is desiring this, anyway, given all the conversations I've had with CIOs in the last year. Use strategic relationships with stakeholders across the business to brainstorm ideas and bring them to the board. To be clear, boards are least equipped to evaluate AI strategy. But most of them are smart enough to know they need a qualified advisor. This is the big opportunity for the CIOs to be the trusted advisor in AI.” To succeed, Friedman with Connektedminds says, “it is critical to demonstrate value through storytelling; use time to data and time to value as the measures; this isn't your parent's ROI exercise.”
For this reason, navigating GenAI's frontier demands a nuanced dance between innovation and expectation. As Sacolick highlights, it's a journey of trial and error before promising the stars. Yet, C-suite's dreams often leap beyond the rainbow—chasing unicorns where they should be nurturing seedlings. Nevertheless, technology leaders share the responsibility to keep the C-level informed of the disruptive potential of GenAI, discuss potential use cases, identify top opportunities, map the skills gap and suggest partners to work with. As Klemenz underscores, their unity in vision and voice is crucial—not as soloists but as a chorus in tune with the strategic symphony of the board. This agile alignment, this readiness to pivot and adapt, isn't just strategy; it's survival, ensuring the organization not only faces but embraces the inevitable tides of future disruptions.
Impact on Business Processes
GenAI's entry onto the business stage is like a new actor poised to transform the script of core business processes. Hinchcliffe's posits that while the data officer might not always be in the limelight here, the digital officer certainly takes a bow for market-facing processes. This suggests GenAI will inevitably rewrite the core, but its role might vary across the enterprise tableau.
Friedman with Connektedminds interjects with a strategic plot twist: the CIO and CEO or Board are the pivotal duo. If the CIO is the 'why' and the CDO crafts the 'what', their synergy performs the 'how'. This partnership dictates the flow of the narrative, steering the GenAI storyline to align with the enterprise's epic. Jones' reveals a radical shift—the traditional business process systems, once the backbone of the narrative, might now be commodified by GenAI's sweeping arc. With GenAI, data doesn't just follow the script; it directs it, propelling processes, and outcomes.
Jones with Capgemini believes the stage is set for a paradigm where the CDO faces a new genre of challenges, and CIOs ponder if their next system replacement is destined for a generative AI lead role. Jones says, “Process systems are much easier to industrialize at scale consistently with GenAI than open-ended systems, like Python and Java. This means the shift for the business is that instead of data trailing process and reporting on process, data becomes the thing that drives process and drives decisions and outcomes. … CIOs should be asking themselves whether their next [enterprise resource planning] ERP, [customer relationship management] CRM or other process system replacement will be a GenAI-driven project, where requirements to release is a matter of months, and the focus switches to decisions over process optimization. I’m going to bet that the biggest impact will be on organization rather than process in the medium to long term. We’ve clung to the idea that business processes genuinely matter, but as we move towards a collaborative value network world, we’re liable to find out they aren’t real.”
Russell with Manhattanville College argues, “Fixing business processes will feature a complex interplay of roles. In this act, data emerges not just as a foundational element, but as a dynamic work product, necessitating the CIO and CDO to take center stage, alongside process stewards, in a collaborative production of redefined business processes. As the curtain rises on this collaborative value network world, the realization dawns that the long-rehearsed business processes might not be the star of the show after all but part of an ensemble cast in the grand enterprise narrative.”
Parting Words
In the evolving narrative of generative AI's impact on business, the compelling reasons for CIOs and CDOs to collaborate are as clear as day. Their unified effort is the key to unlocking generative AI's transformative potential, turning data into a driving force and reimagining the essence of business processes. As these roles converge on strategy and innovation, they form the cornerstone of an enterprise ready to navigate the dynamic waters of technological disruption and growth.
See more: The Dangers of AI Technology: Shadow AI and Data
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