The accelerating pace of artificial intelligence (AI) is pushing CEOs to redesign how C-suite roles are structured to drive greater business impact across the enterprise.
In the foreword of a new global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value, IBM vice-chairman Gary Cohn writes: “The CEO’s role has always been to lead through disruption. What AI changes is the velocity and consequences of leadership.
“Enterprises that succeed will operate AI-first – not as a layer of technology, but as a new operating model. Decision cycles will compress. Boundaries between functions will dissolve. Advantage will accrue to those who can learn, adapt, and execute faster than their competitors.”
The annual IBM CEO study, which surveyed 2 000 CEOs globally, shows that as AI becomes more pervasive in the enterprise, CEOs are under growing pressure to rethink how leadership teams operate, how decisions get made and how organisations are structured.
Among the key findings:
- 76% of surveyed organisations have a chief AI officer (CAIO) in 2026, up from just 26% in 2025.
- Analysis shows that organisations with an AI-first approach to C-suite design have scaled 10% more AI initiatives enterprise-wide than their peers.
- 64% of surveyed CEOs say they are comfortable making major strategic decisions based on AI-generated input.
- 83% of respondents agree that AI sovereignty is essential to business strategy, underscoring the importance of having the right controls as AI plays a larger enterprise-wide role.
- Surveyed CEOs say only 25% of the workforce is using AI regularly as part of their job, despite 86% believing their employees have the skills to collaborate with AI.
“AI is changing how work gets done, bringing people and software together in new ways, and it’s changing how people come together in the workplace,” says Mohamad Ali, senior vice-president of IBM Consulting.
“The CEOs delivering real results from AI transformation aren’t just deploying AI faster, they’re redesigning their organisations to bring together the best people with the best technology.”
New challenges demand different kinds of leadership:
- 85% of respondents say all functional leaders must become technology experts in their domain, signaling that AI accountability is expanding beyond specialised roles.
- Among organisations with a CAIO, all surveyed CEOs expect the influence of the role to increase by 2030, alongside rising influence across every member of the C-suite.
- 59% of surveyed CEOs say the CHRO’s influence will increase over the next few years.
As CEOs turn to AI-driven decisions, governance and controls become more critical
- By 2030, surveyed CEOs expect 48% of operational decisions where consistency and guardrails can be codified will be made by AI without human intervention, compared to 25% today.
- 79% of executives surveyed confirm they are decentralising decision-making, distributing accountability as AI plays a more significant role enterprise wide.
Organisations are betting on people to drive AI success
- 83% of CEOs surveyed say AI success depends more on people’s adoption than technology.
- Between 2026 and 2028, respondents expect 29% of employees to require reskilling for a different role and 53% to need upskilling to perform their current role more effectively.
- Surveyed organisations that redesigned five core business areas — technology, finance, HR, operations and cross-functional collaboration — are four times more likely to have delivered on business objectives.
- 77% of respondents say talent and technology leadership roles are converging, suggesting tighter integration between talent, technology and enterprise strategy.