AI — among all the other business elements it’s transforming — is driving a major change in leadership dynamics between the CIO and CEO at some companies: 31% of US technology leaders report that their CEO is working more closely with the CIO than a year ago — motivated, according to a recent report, “by the urgency to deliver AI-driven transformation.”
The finding comes from a report by managed network provider Expereo and research firm IDC, based on IDC’s Technology Leaders Survey 2025. The survey polled 650 IT decision makers and influencers, including CIOs and CTOs, at companies with over 500 employees that report annual revenue exceeding $500 million, from across five countries.
Other survey data confirms the impact of AI on the CIO role: 79% of IDC survey technology leader respondents said the enterprise’s focus on AI has raised their personal profile at the board level; 76% said they are confident that they and their team can support organizational growth and efficiency through the technology strategy.
Martina Longo, research manager for EMEA Digital Business and Digital Natives for IDC and co-author of the report, said that behind the role shift is a growing acknowledgment among CEOs and the executive board that AI has become fundamental to core business outcomes — from operational efficiencies to revenue growth.
“As a result, CEOs are more actively supporting digital initiatives and collaborating closely with CIOs to shape AI strategies, governance frameworks, and implementation plans,” Longo told InformationWeek. “Expectations are high — from both CEOs and boards — regarding the transformative potential of AI to strengthen organizational resilience and sharpen competitive edge.”
Dan Carpenter, CIO and SVP of GTM strategy and operations at product analytics platform company Amplitude, can attest to the growing influence of CIO expertise. “The relationship between the CIO and the executive team is just becoming even more important to using technology to create differentiation, productivity or competitive advantage,” he said.
(Source: Amplitude) Dan Carpenter is CIO and SVP of GTM strategy and operations at product analytics platform company Amplitude.
The entire executive team at Amplitude is deeply interested in how AI can be used across different workflows and across the employee base, starting with the CEO, Carpenter said. He cited a recent review he had with Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates to discuss the progress the organization has made in adopting AI to improve internal productivity and deliver customer outcomes faster.
“I think all CIOs right now need to be really leaning in and being proactive on how to leverage technology to solve big business problems. That’s our goal,” he said.
CIO Influence Predicted to Grow
The growing influence of the CIO will likely not abate in the immediate future, at least based on enterprise spending intentions. Data analytics and AI are among the most front-of-mind technologies for organizations — 37% of respondents to the IDC survey said that data analytics or AI will be prioritized at their companies in the coming 12 months, in terms of both effort and financial investment. That technology priority is right behind networking/connectivity (43%) and security/cybersecurity (38%).
“The role of technology leaders is becoming increasingly intertwined with business strategy and growth objectives,” Longo said, and AI is reinforcing that trend. “In fact, 48% of technology leaders we surveyed agree that their role will become even more critical in the coming years — not only in driving IT modernization and cost optimization, but also in contributing directly to business growth and revenue generation, by demonstrating the business impact of technology.”
Tech leaders’ expanding role includes tracking the ROI of digital technology investments, and AI initiatives will be central to that task. IDC forecasts the rise of the “Digital Business Leader,” a role where CIOs are leading enterprise-wide digital transformation and closely collaborating with the line of business leaders to improve their organizations’ agility and produce tangible results.
“It’s worth noting that 78% of respondents agree: The current pace of innovation makes this an exciting time to be a technology leader,” Longo said.
Carpenter’s role at Amplitude has evolved into a blend of “both the CIO role and the go-to-market role into a sort of operational and technical leader,” he said, adding that “it’s a lot of fun.
“You bring both of those competencies into one place and look to accelerate the business through leveraging technology, but also by driving strategy, process and execution across the go-to-market teams,” he said.
Whither the Chief AI Officer?
Last year, 28% of U.S. tech leaders forecast that a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) would absorb many of the CIO’s responsibilities within two years — but 86% of U.S. businesses have not hired a CAIO, according to the IDC survey. Longo explained that businesses are at different stages of AI adoption and maturity, and IDC’s data reflects that only a minority of organizations have appointed a CAIO.
“This role [of CAIO] is at present more common in technology companies than end-user companies,” said Longo. “Currently, the more common approach [at non-tech companies] is to assign AI-related responsibilities to existing technology leaders, such as the CIO, CTO, or CISO, depending on their presence and the organization’s structure.”
One technology company that has brought on a CAIO is Nokia, which recently appointed Pallavi Mahajan as the company’s Chief Technology and AI Officer. Nokia has also created two new teams — Technology and AI Organization (TAO) and a Corporate Development Organization (CDO) — to support the company’s AI, security, and business development strategies.
Carpenter isn’t a fan of this approach. While some large enterprises might find value in appointing a CAIO, said Carpenter, he views AI adoption as an integral part of the role of CIO.
“I’d like to think that the role of the CIO is really leveraging technology to drive a business advantage, and AI is a critical part of that,” said Carpenter. “So it would be a little disenfranchising, I think, to create a different role outside of the CIO, to do the same job as the CIO, but do it within AI.”
He added that in his role as CIO of Amplitude, he’s bringing together several teams to deploy AI including the operations, enablement, technology and data teams. Appointing a CAIO could lead to the duplication of teams and AI efforts, which “becomes problematic when you’re trying to create central data sources to enable AI. You don’t have multiple teams trying to create multiple different data sources.”
While not every company will appoint a CAIO, the responsibilities of that position, including defining AI strategy, governance and implementation, are “here to stay,” said Longo.
She continued, “whether managed by newly created roles or integrated into existing ones, AI leadership is becoming a permanent fixture in the enterprise landscape.”
