CDOs and CDAOs: Rethink your role or fade away

Chief data and analytics officers need to reinvent themselves in the age of AI or risk their responsibilities being assimilated by their organizations’ IT teams, according to a new Gartner report.

Three-quarters of CDAOs who fail to make companywide influence and measurable business impact their top priorities by 2026 will be swallowed up by IT functions, the analyst firm predicts.

With generative AI requiring organizations to re-evaluate their data strategies, CDAOs and chief data officers need to step up as leaders and demonstrate business value beyond their standard data management and governance functions, Gartner advises.

At the same time, CDAOs and CDOs have huge opportunities to influence and assist with their organizations’ AI projects, but they must avoid getting tangled up in turf battles with CIOs, chief AI officers, and other IT leaders, says Alan Duncan, an analyst covering data and analytics strategy for Gartner.

“Generative AI has heightened a need for CDAOs to reinvent themselves — and their function — or risk becoming obsolete,” the Gartner report says. “To stay relevant, CDAOs must understand the value levers and pain points of the organization to gain power, grow influence, and build trusted relationships with executive peers.”

Out of the back office

The first wave of CDOs and CDAOs focused on back-office tasks such as data governance, data quality, and data management, but people in the positions now need to become more visible by showing how they bring value to the business, Duncan says.

“Those functions are more needed than ever, but they’re hidden from the visibility of need,” he says. “Nobody wants to worry about their sewer until they get a leak.”

In many cases, CDOs and CDAOs have failed to demonstrate their business value, he adds. And with data quality tied directly to successful AI projects, CDAOs must also increase their visibility and show how they can help.

 “Gen AI has poured gasoline on all of this stuff, so there’s an awful lot of expectations now,” Duncan says.

At some organizations, CDAOs may have to fight to get a piece of the AI action, with many IT and business executives vying for ownership of internal AI efforts. CDAOs and other executives should strive for an environment of collaboration, not competition, where many executives and employees contribute to the success of AI deployments, Duncan says.

“AI has all the excitement, all of the high-quality attention,” he says. “It’s in the shop window, and if you want to be in it, then you have to be thinking hard about how to be in it and who else is also trying to be in that shop-window team.”

CDOs, who also face an uphill battle on getting colleagues to understand their role, can better demonstrate their value to the business and to AI projects by focusing on their interpersonal skills, Duncan notes. It’s important for CDAOs and CDOs to have good working relationships with CIOs, CFOs, and other executives, even though they aren’t always hired for their team-building skills, he says.

“In many cases, the CDOs have been hired for the skill set of data governance,” he adds. “They hired you as the head of delivery, not as the head of diplomacy.”

From defense to offense

From its inception, the CDO role has tended to focus on compliance and risk management, but the position needs to evolve, adds Christopher Jones, recently hired as CTO and CDO at Nightwing, a cybersecurity and intelligence solutions provider focused on the national security market.

“There’s a gap between CDOs’ ability to be defensive, focused on compliance and risk management, and to positively affect business and mission outcomes,” says Jones, a former associate deputy director for science and technology at the US CIA. “The way those goals have been defined across public and private sector organizations often put them in a box.”

Data management and analytics done right has huge potential to impact business outcomes, Jones says, and internal data can point organizations to many insights, including more efficient operations, new market opportunities, and employee training needs.

The challenge to CDOs and CDAOs is to perform their traditional data management roles while also pointing organizational leadership to the opportunities created through data analytics, he adds.

“CDOs everywhere have to struggle with those foundational issues of getting the data right so that you can leverage the analytics at scale, and those can be long-term propositions,” Jones says. “Markets don’t always have the patience for that. People really need to move with a certain sense of urgency.”

CDOs and CDAOs need to recognize that AI and advanced data analytics have disrupted the traditional role, adds Todd James, chief data and technology officer at retail data science firm 84.51°.

“With AI, the focus has shifted dramatically to activating data through analytics to drive business value,” he says. “The CDAO’s orientation should start and end with using data to enable the business for the benefit of customers and associates.”

It’s time to evolve

The CDAO and CDO roles are in a once-in-a-lifetime transitional phase focused on analytics, James adds.

“After the transition, the CDO may be split with the core data management and governance components reverting into IT, and the more strategic analytic parts of the role may be moved to data-capable business leaders,” he says. “Those CDAOs who lack sufficient business understanding, experience, and skills will find themselves at risk and less competitive for the role than individuals with more diversified career backgrounds.”

While James and Gartner’s Duncan voiced concerns about the role, other data experts appear more optimistic about the future of the job.

For example, despite CDO challenges, the adoption of AI demonstrates the value of good data governance, says the Voice of the Chief Data Officer report, published by membership organization Data Leaders in September.

The report, with contributions from about 40 CDOs and CDAOs, shows data executives leaning into the role they can play in AI projects, even though Gartner suggests that CIOs should take responsibility for AI.

Data Leaders’ discussion with data leaders “clearly showcases how far CDOs have come in building the business relationships and acumen that will underpin AI’s successful integration,” the report says. “Whoever takes the helm, the collaboration between CDO and CIO must be seamless to succeed.”

Long-term job security

Casey Foss, chief commercial officer at digital services firm West Monroe Partners, also sees the CDO/CDAO position being more essential as organizations place higher value on data governance, fluency, and access.

In a recent report, “What Will the C-Suite Look Like in 5 Years,” West Monroe asked leaders aged 25 to 45 which C-suite roles would increase in importance in the near future. The CDO role came in second, behind chief AI officer, with 11% of those surveyed seeing future value from the job.

But another 7% predicted that the CDO role would be phased out within five years.

Foss is with the 11%. While the standalone chief AI officer’s job is getting a lot of attention in the short term, CDOs or CDAOs may have more staying power over the long term, she says.

“The data, with tools like AI, with data proliferation, and with data monetization, is only becoming more important to businesses and their ability to drive value,” she says. “We’re seeing a short-term downturn in that role, while people lump it in with AI and divide it between a CIO and the chief AI officer, but I think that it will stick around for a much longer period of time than a chief AI officer.”

Organizations that continue to invest in CDOs will be more mature in the data lifecycle and will recognize the crucial role of data and AI in long-term business performance, Foss adds.

“As we think about the new data complexities and regulatory demands, organizations need that dedicated leadership,” she says. “Once you take that role out, it gives people an opportunity for data to be everybody’s responsibility and nobody’s responsibility.”