The CAIO should be a senior executive who leads the company's AI operations and drives the AI-related business strategy, along with initiatives that transform data into business insights. The AI Officer is typically in charge of a global team that delivers the AI vision, shapes the culture of AI, and helps to accelerate the journey towards a fully AI-driven company. The CAIO must have the capacity to deal with the large number of processes impacted by AI and must be able to apply this technology and the insights obtained to improve the performance of the company as a whole: the CAIO must be an executive who deeply understands the business and can apply AI to improve the way the organization processes information, makes decisions, discovers and fosters new business opportunities - ones that would be invisible without AI.

The role of the CAIO is still not well-defined; we will probably see a more robust definition of the boundaries of the role over the following years. Today, a CAIO is likely a technology person who profoundly understands AI innovation and processes but is not necessarily a data scientist or engineer. Data science skills and solid technical background is necessary, but they are not everything. A good CAIO usually comes with extensive service and consulting experience. Beyond having hard AI skills, the CAIO needs to deeply master corporate dynamics, be able to demonstrate empathy, and spread the word about the benefits of AI, while always keeping an effective balance between service and evangelism. The role also requires the ability to architect solutions that leverage AI.

Considering the disruptive nature of AI, the CAIO is responsible for tremendous organizational change and must be able to share the AI vision, drive adoption, and connect business and technology teams across the organization. Taking into consideration the increased collaboration and cross-functional work required for an effective AI strategy, being a champion of building relationships is vital for a CAIO – to ingrain innovation throughout the organization. In fact, the CAIO role is strongly innovation-driven and requires a deep business understanding and the capacity to identify opportunities to add value with AI and create differentiation.