CIOs struggle to find clarity in their organizations’ AI strategies

Many organizations still lack a clear AI strategy, making it difficult for CIOs to drive real results when they deploy the technology.

Asked about their top challenges to AI initiatives, 31% of CIO respondents to CIO.com’s 2026 State of the CIO survey identified a lack of clarity on corporate AI strategy as a top challenge, while 24% said they’re uncertain about which department is responsible for meeting AI goals or ROI expectations. Another 20% said it’s difficult for them to engage with line-of-business leaders on AI goals.

Other top AI challenges include lack of in-house AI expertise (40%), lack of clear ROI metrics (32%), and too many competing demands for AI initiatives (28%).

The survey results come as no surprise to other IT leaders. Many organizations still seem to struggle with how to create an AI plan that makes sense, says Rishi Kaushal, CIO at cybersecurity vendor Entrust.

“They’re still in the early stages of defining a cohesive AI strategy,” he says. “This is where teams that are enabling AI are not talking to the teams that actually require some of the capabilities to be able to be more productive or grow at a different pace.”

Kaushal sees a lack of cooperation across the organization as a major stumbling block. Leaders from HR, risk, compliance, and legal, along with the top executive team, all need to be on the same page with the organization’s AI strategy, he says.

CIOs and other IT leaders must enable that cross-department buy-in, he recommends. The chief HR officer, for example, needs to endorse the AI plan and provide training, while the legal and IT teams need to understand the associated risks and how to mitigate them.

“Partner with all the leaders across the organization,” he advises. “This strategy falls apart if you cannot enable the AI capabilities, and the only way you can enable AI capabilities at scale is if you leverage the talent you have across the organization.”

Technology moves fast

Another challenge is the ever-advancing state of AI itself, Kaushal says. It’s difficult to write an AI strategy when the capabilities seem to change from week to week.

“Every month there’s something new, something different,” he says. “It takes you time to figure out if that’s good enough to get going, so the strategy is not a one-and-done deal. This is something that has to evolve as AI shifts.”

At the same time, organizations need to define who is responsible for meeting ROI and other goals, he adds.

“The way AI is changing so fast, it doesn’t sit neatly just with one function,” Kaushal says. “It cuts across different technology operations, so ownership is key. We’ve got to have clear, defined ownership, which is how we ensure that there’s accountability and metrics so that people have success and can keep evolving.”

Clear ownership of AI initiatives is essential, adds Shubhradeep Guha, chief delivery officer at AI platform provider Publicis Sapient. 

The business strategy should come from the CEO and executive team, while the CIO often plays a central role in translating that ambition into an execution model, he says. But strategy cannot sit with the IT team alone, he adds.

“AI strategy dies quickly when it is treated as a tech project instead of a business priority,” Guha says.

AI activity isn’t strategy

The survey’s results reflect what Guha sees in the marketplace.

“A lot of companies do not have an AI strategy as much as they have an AI activity list,” he notes. “Many organizations have enthusiasm for AI, but not enough clarity on where it is meant to create value, which decisions it should improve, and how success will be measured.”

A couple of AI pilots or a list of use cases don’t make up an AI strategy with clear goals on how to create value and measure success, Guha says.

“Without that clarity, AI programs can quickly become a collection of disconnected pilots rather than a focused strategy tied to business outcomes,” he adds. “Too many organizations are confusing experimentation with strategy.”

There’s broad confusion across organizations about who owns the AI strategy, adds Aman Mahapatra, CIO at AI and digital transformation consulting firm Tribeca Softech.

“The pattern is nearly universal,” he says. “Every C-suite executive believes AI is strategic, but nobody has agreed on who owns the strategy.”

In some cases, CIOs, COOs, CFOs, chief risk officers, and chief HR officers all claim ownership of the company’s AI strategy, he notes.

“That is not one company’s dysfunction,” Mahapatra says. “That is the default state at most large enterprises.”

While CIOs have a role, Mahapatra believes CEOs should own the corporate AI strategy. “The logic is simple: AI touches strategy, operations, risk, talent, and culture simultaneously,” he says. “No single functional leader has the authority to arbitrate across all of those.”

Mahapatra’s advice to CIOs is to do something counterintuitive — say no to most AI proposals.

“The CIOs getting this right fund fewer initiatives with more resources, clearer financial targets, and direct business ownership from day one,” he adds.

Successful CIOs will evaluate AI investments the same way the company looks at any other investment, by tying AI initiatives to the earnings plan before a line of code is written, he says.

“That sounds obvious but is shockingly rare,” Mahapatra adds. “Most organizations still budget AI as ‘innovation spend,’ which is corporate shorthand for, ‘We do not require this to pay for itself.’”

The most concerning number from the State of the CIO survey is that 24% of CIOs are uncertain about which department is responsible for meeting AI goals, he says. In many cases, ownership is split across organizations.

“‘Distributed’ is a polite word for ‘nobody,’” he says. “When ownership is spread without explicit accountability, every executive assumes someone else is tracking ROI.”

Mahapatra recommends that every AI initiative is connected to a business owner — not the CIO or CFO — who is accountable for the financial outcome.

“The CIO owns the technical platform and governance,” he adds. “The CFO validates returns against the balance sheet. The CEO arbitrates when priorities conflict.”

Joint ownership works, but only when each party’s specific accountability is written down, reviewed quarterly, and tied to compensation, he adds. “Otherwise, joint ownership becomes shared neglect.”