While some companies like ExxonMobil and Qualcomm already have a Chief Artificial technology Officer in their C-suite, most companies in India are yet to take AI to the C-suite, writes  RIYA PAHUJA.

Is it time for you to hire a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer? Companies have been seen to create new C-suite roles when there is a critical need to align their leadership to the changing market landscape. When new market trends evolve to transformations, it becomes imperative for companies to build new C-suite leadership roles to maintain competitive advantage. Any new C-suite role would typically be one that is very specific to the domain in which the company wishes to accentuate its strengths.

“As an example, the strategic use of big data in the past two decades has often separated winners from the losers in the industry. And more often than not, the winners have been first movers in dedicating a C-suite space to a Chief Data Officer,” said Founder Partner, Maxima Group, Suvarna Ghosh.

Businesses have created new C-suite roles as and when there was a need. We today have Chief Data Officers, Chief Privacy Officers, Chief Security Officers, and Chief Digital officers. But with the increasing investments in AI, should organisations now look at creating a new CX role for AI?

“Most studies confirm that AI is the next big disruptor that will decide the success of companies in the future. All this mandates that there must be a new C-suite role for AI in the boardroom. The first movers again will be the winners in this new landscape,” Ghosh added.

A CAIO role is very much a requirement in the new business landscape but has to be defined very well to ensure that any possible chaos is negated. There are definite overlaps with the CDO and CMO roles but having a specific AI leadership would likely offer more hits than misses.

“When CDO roles were first created by the top firms, there were concerns about it interfering with the CTO position. However, the companies of today are smart in ensuring that the boundary lines are drawn when it comes to the KPIs of each role while also ensuring that there is enough flexibility given to collaboration and cooperation with each other,” Ghosh said.

Resonating with Ghosh, Co-Founder, Talent500, Vikram Ahuja also feels as more companies look to incorporate AI solutions to transform and augment existing business models, there is a case to be made to create a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) position.

“The relevance of this position completely depends on the organization, it’s long-term objectives and maturity of its leadership suite. A Chief AI Officer makes complete sense for any organization where AI is a core business function, supporting key business lines (50% of the time) and fostering innovation internally,” he said.

 “Elevating AI to be represented at the leadership level means to really transform into an AI-driven company and embed AI and it’s use into every product and process within the organization. This would be excellent for a company that considers AI as a core business differentiator working alongside all other business departments to deliver value,” Ahuja added.

But not everyone out there shares the same opinion. Chairman and Managing Director, Adecco India, Vidya Sagar Gannamani has something else to say. He feels the organisational structure will become more chaotic with a new CAIO role.

“We need to ask ourselves if the creation of this roe is strategic enough or is this going to be disruptive enough to need a person at the c-suite level. The follow-up question is by creating a new role, can we set a clear set of accountabilities for that role. Because overlap of accountabilities at c-suite is also not that any CEO wants to end up with. I think the creation of the CAIO role will lead to more chaos and fracturing of roles and responsibilities and unclarity in accountability,” said Gannamani.

While some companies like ExxonMobil and Qualcomm have a Chief Artificial technology Officer in their C-suite in the US, most companies in India are yet to take AI to the C-suite. Ghosh from Maxima Group is positive for the creation of the CAIO role.

“The COVID-19 crisis which limited human interface has accelerated the shift to AI massively when companies witnessed its benefits clearly in continuous customer communication. We are poised to see a huge surge in CAIO hiring shortly,” she said.