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A new global study from IBM has found the number of organisations with a Chief AI Officer has nearly tripled in a year.
The annual IBM CEO study, which surveyed 2,000 CEOs globally, found 76% of organisations now have a Chief AI Officer in 2026, up from only 26% in 2025.
In the foreword of the study, IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn said AI is forcing enterprises to rethink how leadership teams operate, how decisions get made, and how organisations are structure.
“The CEO’s role has always been to lead through disruption. What AI changes is the velocity and consequences of leadership,” he said.
“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 study also showed that organisations with an AI-first approach to C-suite design have scaled 10% more AI initiatives enterprise-wide than their peers.
Meanwhile, 64% of surveyed CEOs say they are comfortable making major strategic decisions based on AI-generated input. At the same time, they said 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.
IBM’s findings suggest AI accountability is also expanding beyond specialised technology roles.
85% of respondents said all functional leaders must become technology experts within their domain, while all surveyed CEOs from organisations with a Chief AI Officer expect the role’s influence to increase further by 2030.
The study also pointed that there will be a demand for different kinds of leadership. 59% of surveyed CEOs expect the influence of Chief Human Resources Officers to increase over the next few years. In addition, 77% of respondents said talent and technology leadership roles are converging, reflecting tighter integration between workforce strategy and technology leadership.
The study also highlighted growing concerns around governance and oversight, with 83% of respondents agreeing AI sovereignty is now essential to business strategy.
“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,” said IBM Consulting Senior VP Mohamad Ali.
“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.”
