29% of CDOs don’t see a future in the position

Nearly a third of IT leaders who hold chief data officer and similar roles at Fortune 1000 companies don’t believe in the long-term future of the CDO position.

Just over 29% of CDOs, chief AI officers, and people with similar jobs surveyed by the Data & AI Leadership Exchange believe the CDO role is a transitional one that will eventually disappear.

And while nearly 48% of those surveyed say the CDO role is successful and well established, another 48% believe the position is nascent, evolving, and often a revolving door. Nearly 5% of those surveyed say the CDO role has been a failure.

The new survey echoes a recent Gartner report that suggests CDOs and chief data and analytics officers must reinvent themselves in the age of AI or risk having their responsibilities assimilated into their IT teams.

Several factors appear to be contributing to concern and doubt about the long-term viability of the CDO position, which began to gain prominence in 2008 and 2009 following a global financial crisis, says Randy Bean, senior advisor to the Data & AI Leadership Exchange.

When change is no longer needed

Many CDOs see their roles primarily as change management gurus focused on helping organizations embrace data-first strategies and adopt good data practices, says Bean, co-author of the survey. However, a growing number of organizations have begun to see the value of clean and accurate data in the age of AI, and some CDOs see a future where they’re no longer needed to argue for good data practices, he adds.

Several of the largest tech companies in the US don’t have CDO positions because everyone there is focused on using data for a competitive advantage, says Bean, who previously ran a data advisory firm focused on Fortune 1000 clients.

The CDO role is about “trying to get an organization from the way they’ve operated in the past to basically having data in their DNA,” Bean says. “As that’s achieved, does the role need to continue on? That’s one of the questions that’s under debate for many organizations.”

In addition, some trepidation about the future of the CDO is driven by uncertainty about the impact of AI adoption on the role and the rise of the chief AI officer role, which may take away some of the CDO’s responsibilities, Bean says.

Only 51% of the survey respondents say the CDO role is well understood within their organization, he notes, while about 35% believe the role is not evolving in a positive direction. About 37% of those surveyed say CDOs need more support from C-level executives and midlevel managers.

Meanwhile, more than half of respondents say the average CDO tenure is less than three years, with about a quarter saying it’s two years or less.

Bean co-authored a report in early 2024 that found that one of CDOs’ biggest challenges was getting their business colleagues to understand the CDO’s role.

Data leaders still needed

Bean believes most organizations will still need data leaders, whether they’re called the chief data officer, chief data and analytics officer, chief analytics and insight officer, or some other title.

“The demand for data and AI leadership of some kind will only increase, but how that’s manifested, in terms of the role and responsibilities, will evolve and will change,” he says. “The CDO role will probably be around for a while, just because organizations will take time to evolve into whatever the next manifestation might be.”

Several CDOs or people in related positions argue that the position is crucial in the current IT environment, where successful AI deployment depends on clean and accurate data.

“I’d think of the CDO role as being like a ship’s navigator during the transition from celestial to digital navigation,” says Anil Inamdar, global head of data services at storage vendor NetApp Instaclustr. “The role is clearly evolving, but it’s evolving because data itself is transforming.”

The fact that nearly half of all CDOs believe the role is well established is actually a positive sign, he adds. “We’re hitting an inflection point where organizations are realizing that data leadership isn’t just about governance and management anymore,” Inamdar adds. “It’s about orchestrating the entire data supply chain in this new Data 4.0 era.”

The CDO role will become integral as AI adoption grows, adds Daniel Kearney, CTO and CDO at Sustainable Metal Cloud, a cloud computing service focused on AI workloads.

“The role will likely remain in the C-suite as long as data is the differentiator,” he says. “Data is important for modern enterprises, and as AI evolves, having someone who can manage, protect, and strategically utilize that data is crucial.”

However, CDOs need to demonstrate measurable value, such as operational efficiencies, new revenue from data-driven services, or improved compliance and transparency, Kearney says. “These outcomes will establish the CDO as an essential role rather than a temporary one,” he adds.

Like many CDOs, Kearney sees the role as in a state of evolution, and CDOs need the vision required to translate multimodal data into valuable business insights, he says.

“It’s fascinating to watch how it’s changing to keep up with the data explosion we’re experiencing,” he says. “Organizations are experiencing exponential growth in their data volumes, types, and complexity. CDOs need to adapt quickly to not only manage the diverse data types but to capitalize on them strategically.”