This years UK CIO Summit in London was packed full of opportunities to trade experiences and new insights.

For me, killer question of the day came from Marc Dowd during his panel discussion on the CIOs role in organizational growth.

In a prior session I had whinged that ‘…since the late 1990s, we remain obsessed with (tech) solutions looking for (business) problems’ i.e. we keep talking about how challenging it is to articulate ROI when considering current/ emerging tech; for this generation the focus is on #GenerativeAI.

Given the tsunami of marketing/ advertising about gen. AI we shouldn’t be surprised that #CIOs would have a tech first mindset, right?

So, back to Marc’s question:

‘…should innovation come from the CIO?’

The answer from the panel of CIOs (and many in subsequent breakout sessions) was a resounding ‘no’ closely followed by ‘maybe’…

Why?

Two reasons:

1. Many CIOs I spoke with at the summit explained that the drive for investing in AI wasn’t arising from their own desire to invest in (as one put it) the latest ‘shiny toys’, but instead was coming from their #CEOs and their business partners
2. Context: some organizations remain entrenched in ‘tech first’ mindset (as opposed to ‘business first’)

Whilst this might not be too surprising, there seemed to be broad agreement that, in the rush to exploit AI, business stakeholders continue to avoid developing a deep understanding about the fundamentals, or the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their businesses. This is especially true during attempts to develop comprehensive (consensual) views of the ever-present issues, risks and opportunities in day-to-day business operations; it seems that many prefer to progress an (apparently) ‘easier route’ by investing (sometimes blindly) into new tech.

If CEOs and boards insist on AI adoption, then perhaps a more useful approach would be to stop thinking about AI as a strategic imperative and think of it as a tactfully useful ‘point solution’ instead…for the moment at least…:) …

Image by Washarapol Jundang Pixabay ‘bolt-3742024_1280’