IBM surveyed about 2,000 CEOs and senior leaders this year. In their companies, the share with a Chief AI Officer went from 26% to 76% in one year. It's one of the fastest-spreading titles in big business.
A small business doesn't need the title. It does need the job done, and in a lot of small businesses nobody's been handed it yet.
Here's what the role is, what the numbers say about it, and how you'd cover it in a business with five people or fifty.
What a Chief AI Officer does
A Chief AI Officer is the one person who owns AI across a company. The job usually comes down to four things:
- Deciding what gets used. Which AI tools and projects get money and time, and which get stopped early.
- Setting the rules. What customer information AI can see, what it can write under the company's name, and who checks it first.
- Making it stick. A trial run that three people tried once isn't progress. The useful tools have to become the normal way the team works.
- Teaching people. Most staff need someone to show them what good use looks like and where the lines are.
At a big company that's a full-time executive. The tech team builds and runs the systems, and the Chief AI Officer decides what AI is for and keeps it honest.
How common the role really is
The numbers depend on who's counting. IBM's 76% is what companies reported about themselves. Count the actual job title and it shrinks. A September census found only 24 of the Fortune 500 with a company-wide Chief AI Officer. Add combined titles like Chief Data and AI Officer and it's 54.
Both numbers are true. Most big companies now have someone leading AI. Few have made it a separate seat at the top, and it isn't cheap. Equilar tracks executive pay, and it put median total pay for chief AI officers at about $1.9 million this year.
Where it goes wrong, at any size
The usual failure is simple. Somebody gets put in charge of AI with no say over how the work gets done. They write rules, and nobody follows them.
In a small business it looks like a few AI subscriptions and a team told to "use AI more." Nobody owns the decisions, so nothing sticks, and you end up paying for tools nobody opens.
About Chief AI Officer certifications
Someone may sell themselves to you as a "certified Chief AI Officer." There's no standard certification for the role, and some of those programs are accredited by the same company that sells them. The independent ones, like the IAPP's AI Governance Professional, mostly cover AI laws and compliance. They're built for people working inside big companies.
A certificate tells you someone studied. It won't tell you whether they can make AI pay for itself in your shop, and that's the proof to look for.
Does a small business need a Chief AI Officer?
Not on the payroll. A full-time executive at that pay makes no sense for a small business, and at your size most of that job would be meetings.
But somebody has to make the calls. If nobody does, you can't say for sure which tools you're paying for. You can't say what customer information has been typed into them either. Here's what the job looks like at your size:
- Pick one or two jobs where AI saves real time. Quotes, follow-up emails and job write-ups are good places to start. Skip anything that has to be perfect on the first try.
- Write the rules down on one page. What AI can see, what it can write for customers, and who reads it before it goes out.
- Check every month or so whether it paid off. Count the hours saved and the jobs won. If a tool isn't earning its keep after a couple of months, drop it.
- Decide who owns it. One person who can say yes and no.
Step 2 is the one that protects your name. A tool that writes for you will happily write a review nobody gave, or a promise you'd never make. So put one line at the top of that page: nothing fake goes out. No made-up reviews, and no claim you can't back up.
That's the Chief AI Officer job for a small business, with the corporate weight taken off.
Who should own it
For most owners it's you, at least at first, because you know which jobs eat your week and which customers matter most.
If you don't have the hours, an outside advisor can do the planning and the checking while you keep the final say. That's part of the consulting on every Before Kings Co. project. Want help working out where AI fits in your business, and where it doesn't? Tell us a little about it. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.