A new global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value finds that the accelerating pace of artificial intelligence is pushing CEOs to redesign how C-suite roles are structured in an effort to drive greater business impact across the enterprise.

"The CEO's role has always been to lead through disruption," IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn writes in the foreword of the study, which is titled "Rewiring the C-suite: The fast track to 2030." "What AI changes is the velocity and consequences of leadership. Enterprises that succeed will operate AI-first — not as a layer of technology, but as a new operating model. Decision cycles will compress. Boundaries between functions will dissolve. Advantage will accrue to those who can learn, adapt, and execute faster than their competitors."

IBM's latest annual CEO study, which surveyed 2,000 CEOs from around the world, shows that as AI becomes more pervasive, CEOs are under increasing pressure to rethink how leadership teams operate, how decisions get made, and how organizations are structured.

Here are several key findings:

  • More than three-quarters (76%) of surveyed organizations have a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) in 2026, up from just 26% in 2025. Among organizations with a CAIO, all surveyed CEOs expect the influence of that role to increase by 2030 — alongside rising influence across every member of the C-suite. 
  • By 2030, surveyed CEOs expect 48% of operational decisions where consistency and guardrails can be codified will be made by AI without human intervention, compared to 25% today. 
  • Analysis shows that organizations with an AI-first approach to C-suite design have scaled 10% more AI initiatives enterprise-wide than their peers.
  • Nearly two-thirds (64%) of surveyed CEOs say they are comfortable making major strategic decisions based on AI-generated input. 
  • The vast majority (83%) of respondents agree that AI sovereignty is essential to business strategy, underscoring the importance of having the right controls as AI plays a larger enterprise-wide role. 
  • Surveyed CEOs say only 25% of the workforce is using AI regularly as part of their job, despite 86% believing their employees have the skills to collaborate with AI.

"AI is changing how work gets done, bringing people and software together in new ways, and it's changing how people come together in the workplace," said Mohamad Ali, senior vice president of IBM Consulting. "The CEOs delivering real results from AI transformation aren't just deploying AI faster, they're redesigning their organizations to bring together the best people with the best technology."

The study also includes five "plays" that CEOs must make in order to lead in an AI-first landscape. They include the following (with potential payoffs taken directly from the report):

Play 1: Rethink the C-suite for speed and clarity. "CEOs who are remaking the C-suite with an AI-first mindset have scaled 10% more AI initiatives enterprise-wide."

Play 2: Create an AI-agent flywheel. "The most future-focused CEOs have scaled 23% more AI initiatives enterprise-wide."

Play 3: Customize your AI mix, not just your AI models. "CEOs who systematically incorporate proprietary data and IP into custom AI models and agents expect 13% more of their 2030 revenue to come from products and services not offered today."

Play 4: Orchestrate intelligence — human and artificial. "CEOs who actively redesign how teams work together are more than twice as likely to have delivered on their business objectives."

Play 5: Expect unpredictable futures. "[Eighty-two percent] of AI-first CEOs are already actively engaging partners in one or more quantum ecosystems to access complementary strengths, reduce risk, and accelerate learning."

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