As AI continues to gain momentum across industries, Chief Data Officers (CDOs) find themselves on the front lines – juggling data strategy, culture change, and innovation. Yesterday, I had the honor of hosting a panel on “Winning Strategies for CDOs in the Age of AI” with Randy Bean (renowned advisor and author), Sanjeev Mohan (noted thought leader and former Gartner VP), and Jason Foster (founder and CEO of Cynozure and CDO Hub).
Together, we explored how CDOs can thrive, not just survive, in an AI-driven world. Below are some of my key take-aways from our conversation:
CDOs are taking charge: 80% of CDOs are now focused on “offensive strategies” to deliver aggressive business impact, up from 54% in 2020 – with many more CDO’s (36%) now reporting to non-CIO roles.
Things are trending up for CDOs: 47% of CDOs surveyed feel they are succeeding, a significant improvement from 28% in the previous survey.
And it’s their time because AI needs great data: Over 98% of organizations surveyed believe investing in data is critical to AI.
Characteristics make great CDOs, not their background: The best CDOs are strategic, entrepreneurial, collaborative, team builders, and have an operational mindset.
Culture is a hard thing: Technology is easy, process is hard, and people are impossible.
Best definition of Agents: Agents are “tiny autonomous pieces of business logic.”
Gen AI timing paradox: We are overestimating the short term impact, and underestimating the long term impact.
Talking to your dashboard is now a solvable problem: The key is getting the right combinations of agents, architecture, and context.
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