Neural Notes: Does your business need a chief AI officer?

Welcome back to Neural Notes, where I look at some of the most interesting AI news of the week. In this edition a new C-suite title enters the board room: chief AI officer. But what exactly does the role entail? Is it just a gimmick, or could it be around for the long haul?

As we’ve seen over the past two years, AI (particularly generative AI) has been dominating business discussions. This includes the C-suite level, where everyone unsurprisingly wants to be riding the wave.

A recent report from Salesforce and YouGov AI Research revealed 81% of Australian C-suites think AI is crucial to their business success over the next three years.

But there are a few problems.

One was that 90% of respondents said incomplete or outdated data within their businesses was a significant barrier to AI adoption.

The other was 92% of C-suites said they have a generative AI strategy, but it’s still the CEO’s responsibility.

That’s not a good indication of actually having a proper, executable strategy.

Enter the chief AI officer (CAIO)

In the corporate world, there’s no shortage of trendy titles that promise to solve all our problems. In the past, we’ve seen the likes of chief innovation officer, chief customer officer, and chief digital officer come in and out of vogue.

So one has to ask, is the CAIO just a passing trend, or will it become just as prevalent in businesses as a CFO or CTO?

To dig into this, I spoke with Leonie Valentine, the chief AI officer at the freshly minted Australian Regional AI Network (ARAIN).

Valentine admits the title has a whiff of buzz about it, like all the other shiny executive roles we’ve seen over the years.

“These titles have moments in time,” Valentine said.

“But right now, having a singular focus on the benefits, risks, regulation and ethical obligations for AI at this point in time is really important.”

She’s got a point. The research shows there’s still a gap between ambition and reality for AI in businesses.

According to the aforementioned Salesforce data, only 51% of executives feel highly proficient in using AI, even though 83% report using AI tools regularly.

That’s where Valentine sees the chief AI officer stepping in. Because while the enthusiasm is there, the know-how is still sorely lacking.

What does a chief AI officer do?

When asked what her own day-to-day as a CAIO looks like, Valentine breaks it down into four key phases: education, exploration, evaluation and engagement.

“In this role… you’re not really looking for a senior executive from a tech background. You’re actually looking for a senior executive who understands the applications of technology for the benefit of humans,” Valentine said.

Her role at the Australian Regional AI Network focuses on educating and supporting regional businesses on how AI can be practically applied in their operations.

The network is also looking at rural industries such as agriculture and fisheries, which have seen significantly lower AI adoption than their urban counterparts.

“The design and actual adoption of AI solutions is in single digits right now,” Valentine said.

Valentine explained that for people in regional Australia in particular, it is important to showcase what AI can actually do for them now as opposed to showcasing its future possibilities.

“When you’re a small to medium enterprise in rural Australia, you’re everything — chief bottle washer all the way through to CFO and farmhand,” Valentine said.

“So some of the everyday tasks which they might find particularly challenging… all of that’s actually much easier thanks to the AI that’s built into those tools, but most people haven’t been educated on how to even use those things.”

One example Valentine gave was helping farmers use AI tools to optimise processes or automate basic administrative work so they can focus on more critical activities.

In addition to education, Valentine spends a lot of her time engaging with partners and exploring practical AI solutions that can be implemented without massive budgets.

“[It’s about] educating those industries on really useful, practical applications for the tools today – ones that aren’t going to cost them a fortune, not take a lot of bandwidth, and solve really simple problems,” Valentine said.

One size doesn’t fit all

In an organisation focused specifically on AI advocacy, Valentine’s role as the CAIO is going to be hands-on and taken seriously. She doesn’t have to convince the business on AI.

In other companies, this might be a different story.

According to Valentine, the role of a chief AI officer is likely to look different in different businesses – particularly this early on.

“A lot of it is going to depend on the appetite of the organisation, the culture of the organisation, and then also the vision of the executive team in terms of who they really want to be and how they want to leverage these sorts of things,” Valentine said.

In some businesses, the CAIO might be someone working closely with a chief digital officer or CIO, while in others, they may be completely autonomous.

This variability means that the role could be more focused on strategic oversight in some places, or hands-on implementation in others.

For example, in a large enterprise, a CAIO might spend most of their time working on AI governance, ethical frameworks and compliance.

In smaller organisations, they might focus more on identifying practical AI use cases that can deliver immediate results.

Valentine points out that without dedicated leadership in AI, some organisations risk making the same mistakes many did when digital transformation became the hot trend.

“You have to have the access to resources and the access to funding – but also a clear mandate from the CEO of that organisation that this is important and that these things are actually going to happen,” Valentine said.

If there isn’t any actual practicality to the role, it will likely become a toothless, corporate checkbox rather than a real driver of change.

The future of the chief AI officer: Passing trend or a necessity?

So is the chief AI officer role destined to go the way of the chief innovation officer – great in theory, but maybe less critical as the years go by?

“I don’t see this as a role like a chief financial officer – that you have a chief AI officer for the next 30 or 40 years,” Valentine said.

“What you’ll see is these technologies, practices and applications being embedded into all organisations.

“But they are not there right now.”

For now, the CAIO role seems like it could be a useful addition to the C-suite, especially for businesses still figuring out practical AI implementation.

Regardless of the role’s overall longevity, the key to any CAIO’s success will lie in it being more than a vanity title that does little more than take advantage of the AI hype cycle.

Other AI news this week

Look, it’s mostly been OpenAI drama and frankly, I’m here for it.

Firstly, OpenAI raised a historic US$6.6 billion at a valuation of US$157 billion. Absolutely wild areas for a business that is yet to turn a profit.
Speaking of which, and it pained me to write this, Elon Musk may have been right about OpenAI, and here’s why.
Just to add to the cattiness, Musk’s own AI venture — xAI — also moved into OpenAI’s old HQ this week.
Meanwhile, OpenAI co-founders Durk Kingma and John Schulman have jumped shipped to join Anthropic.