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#discussion-royal-ballroom
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2025-07-04
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Betty Junod14:07:28

I'm definitely hearing more about these roles.. either new people being hired into them or evolving CDOs to them (D= data or digital)

Jennifer Riggins11:07:40

@bettyjunod that’s interesting! especially that CDO could be digital, didn’t know ha! It’s one of those times I think it’s actually an important role

Betty Junod04:07:41

totally agree...

Betty Junod04:07:48

Data strategy underpins being able to having success with AI...which is part of a digital strategy? all too interconnected

Mauno Ahlgren13:07:05

I think CTO and CIO collaboration is more important than the new role tbh. Not saying that there's no need to have CAIO but for the first time in the history, the CIO and CTO need to become best friends. I just had lunch with a CIO of a big manufacturing company last week and they have a large AI initiative ongoing. The goal is to run AI initiatives at full speed for the next years to make sure they stay competitive.. the problem is that the CIO's team is going to be maintaining everything in the future and they are mostly outsiders in all of this. He was genuinely trying to understand what is going to happen but had a looong way to go.

Jennifer Riggins13:07:35

@mauno.ahlgren my argument is that it’s NOT JUST TECH. the top use case from SAP AI is scanning receipts. The boring, the toil, takes a wholistic cross company approach, not just CIO and CTO. We need a new seat that explores behind IT. Like onboarding isn’t just a tech problem.

Mauno Ahlgren14:07:07

100% agree. (And I'm sure you said it in the article, but it didn't open while at a summer cottage with bad internet 🙈)

Buyan Thyagarajan15:07:33

@jenniferkriggins Thanks for the great article. I have been working with several CIO who are trying to answer there boards on Gen AI strategies and implementations for there companies. I am seeing the following strategies. 1. CDO or data teams take the lead on Unstructured data strategies for deciding solutions to get the organization ready for Gen AI. 2. I also innovation teams take the lead on the implementation on usecases and working with the businesses to collaborate with vendors on right solutions. As I see this evolve, I also see a CAIO role emerge within IT departments organically.

Jennifer Riggins09:07:30

fantastic @buyan — i like that idea of at the org level handling the unstructured data level!