“The moral of the story is: The closer CIOs stick to the CEO, the easier it’s going to be to help guide the rest of the C-suite through technology uncertainty.” (6:26)

This year, the vast majority of CEOs are shifting strategies. At the core of these changes lie digitalization and technology, which introduce unprecedented responsibilities — and opportunities — in the CIO-CEO relationship. Listen now as Gartner Senior Principal Analyst Jennifer Carter shares exclusive best practices and insights on:

• Addressing profit needs via productivity and technology experimentation (3:21)
• Generative AI and creating digital cohesion (5:53)
• How introverted CIOs can build strong connections with extroverted CEOs (8:33)
• Getting critical one-on-one time with busy CEOs (11:59)
• A top mistake CIOs should avoid with CEOs (21:20)

Jennifer Carter is a senior principal analyst in the Executive Leadership of Digital Business (ELDB) practice. She advises executives on how to navigate C-suite dynamics — in particular building effective engagement with CEOs, creating high-performing, collaborative teams, and influencing stakeholders. Jennifer also covers changing culture through the art of culture hacking and taking a people-first approach to enterprise change communications. Furthermore, Jennifer discusses key topics regarding the future of work, such as leadership in remote and hybrid environments and implementing a human-centric work design. Prior to Gartner, Jennifer studied power dynamics within Chinese imperial courts at the University of Florida and spent years in Gartner’s Executive Programs organization. She has a passion for evaluating complex organizational and leadership challenges and uses her diverse background to inspire executives to think outside of the box.

CIOs are largely determining the organization’s future. Their technology investments can drive — or derail — critical business outcomes. However, organizations must first address a range of challenges to ensure ROI:

• Which AI experimentation risks are worth taking?
• What use cases should be prioritized?
• How does the organization create lasting business value?

This podcast addresses each of these challenges, as well as the three key actions CIOs need to take when introducing new technology into their organization.

Podcast highlights:

• Three major technology trends in 2024 (1:43)
• Four pillars for onboarding new technologies, like AI (6:31)
• How CIOs can mitigate risks from technology investments (10:38)
• The challenges of scaling AI and how to balance workforce implications (16:43)
• Take Three: Three actions CIOs should take when introducing new technologies into the organization (20:48)

Episode highlights:

• Critical differences between AI and generative AI (05:11 - 06:24)
• Four AI topics CIOs must prioritize when educating teams (06:36 - 08:07)
• Why AI literacy is starkly different from typical tech-training (08:25 - 11:08)
• How to tailor AI education for non-technical employees and executives (11:52 - 15:05)
• How to solve common challenges when rolling out an AI literacy program (16:01 - 20:00)
• Three steps to launch your AI literacy program (20:30 - 23:17)

AI experimentation is rapidly scaling to implementation across the enterprise. For CIOs, developing a comprehensive AI literacy initiative throughout the organization is now a tactical and strategic imperative.

Erick Brethenoux is Gartner’s Artificial Intelligence Chief of Research. He specializes in AI techniques, decision intelligence and applied cognitive computing. Erick guides organizations on the strategic, organizational and technology aspects of using AI as a driving force for growth. In particular, his research focuses on the operationalization of AI techniques and practices, AI engineering, and next-generation decision intelligence systems.