Written by Trevor Schultz
The rapid rise of AI is forcing CIOs to urgently reevaluate their vision for the future, the role of IT, and what it means to build strong teams.
CIOs are in a unique position to advise organizations on AI investments while leading the teams responsible for implementing AI. As a critical bridge between business and technology, CIOs need to start building the right team now to position their organizations for the future.
Three key approaches are essential to building this bridge.
1. Adopt the role of change agent.
As the acceleration of AI and its near-constant evolution drive IT leadership through unique transformation, CIOs cannot afford to limit their role to operations. The current situation requires us to be agents of change when implementing new technologies.
Change agents must make decisions with business impact in mind and clearly communicate the value of proposed technology advances from a business perspective. Leading in this way establishes the foundation for how your IT team thinks and operates.
The change agent role comes with the responsibility of building an IT team comprised of people with a wide range of different skills who can proactively explore various opportunities related to AI. Respondents to a recent Alteryx survey of business leaders overwhelmingly say having multiple skills (72%) and having domain expertise (28%) are important to their future careers. I answered accordingly.
2. Develop your team to better understand your business with a focus on data literacy.
Data literacy and command of data analysis are perhaps some of the most important skills for unlocking the full potential of AI.
However, many IT leaders face a data skills gap. In a survey examining the use of analytics, fewer than one-third of US data workers said they recognized the importance of their data, and fewer said their entire organization had access to it. He was less than a quarter.
IT teams must fully master data-driven tools to assist others who need or want to understand and evaluate use cases, pain points, and technical knowledge.
Providing employees with access to data and the tools to analyze it can drive business, but it's important to ensure that employees know how to work with data, ask questions, and solve problems. If you don't understand it, that access won't help you.
With data at the foundation of AI, multi-skilled IT teams can demonstrate their value as gateways to (and guardians of) that data by showing business users how to interact with it. You will have the opportunity to strengthen your business.
Modern IT teams must also be familiar with the various ethics, intellectual property, copyright, and data privacy issues associated with the proliferation of enterprise-generated AI. Companies expect CIOs and their teams to develop and manage technology solutions that accelerate growth and unlock more value without compromising compliance and ethics obligations.
AI represents an entire field of research, going far beyond the generative AI technologies that dominate today's conversations and demand education and exploration. CIOs and their teams would be wise to collaborate with academic institutions, join industry consortia, and attend conferences where they can get the latest insights from across the industry.
3. Never stop learning.I never have Quit coaching.
Learning does not begin and end with skills training. It must involve doing.
The same IT teams focused on mitigating risk will also be running the organization's AI investments, which come with their own share of failures. Mistakes are a natural part of the innovation process, especially with rapidly advancing technology. Successful organizations and their IT teams iterate over time, building best practices along the way.
CIOs must set guardrails for their teams, including ethical considerations and policies governing the use of data and AI. These guidelines will help your team innovate safely and reliably. As technology evolves, CIOs must keep in mind that policies will evolve as well.
eyes to the future
A CIO is better than a leader within an organization who has a say in AI strategy, hires and upskills the right team for implementation, and has the ability to build a culture that adapts to continuous change. If CIOs get it right, the IT teams they built and now lead will fully realize the potential of AI in the future.
For more information, Alteryx AI Platform for Enterprise Analyticss.
Trevor Schulze is Alteryx's CIO.
