Now more than ever, CIOs need to be change agents

CIOs are increasingly expected to drive IT adoption in their organizations, with change management becoming a huge — and more challenging — imperative in the age of AI.

Evangelism of the latest technologies has long been part of the job, but many CIOs now say resistance to AI adoption and the fast-paced evolution of IT tools have raised the stakes.

Change fatigue has become a major challenge as Andrea Ballinger, CIO of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, tries to update the IT systems and provide a tech-driven ultra-personalized student experience at the university, she says.

“It’s not even inside of our institutions or our private companies, but the world is throwing so much at us,” she adds. “What you heard today, you’re being told something else tomorrow.”

For CIOs, change management means recognizing that some employees are on a slower journey and, at the same time, encouraging staff to embrace progress, Ballinger says. Good leaders will recognize that some employees will resist, but it’s their responsibility to help employees navigate the changes, she adds.

“Change management is understanding where people are at,” she says. “It’s having that sense of urgency, but a sense of urgency does not mean running without a parachute or without a plan. It means you act today.”

Change management was a big topic of conversation at the CIO 100 Awards and Conference in Frisco, Texas, in mid-August. Several speakers mentioned the challenge, with Ravi Malick, global CIO at cloud-based content sharing service Box, saying change management now represents about 80% of the job, far outpacing pure IT issues.

The change management aspects of a major digital transformation are often what makes or breaks the effort, he says.

AI in particular has forced CIOs to pay more attention to change management because it fundamentally changes the way employees work, he adds. Some past technologies, like the internet and mobile computing, largely started in the consumer space, then leaked over into the enterprise, giving employees time to get comfortable, he notes.

“AI is something that’s reshaping both the consumer space and the enterprise at the same time,” Malick says. “Both the enterprise and individual people are trying to figure out how to get the most value out of it.”

Some revolution, some evolution

As a company, Box is moving forward quickly on some AI initiatives while taking a wait-and-see approach on others, in part to manage the changes required, notes Malick, who sees adoption of AI and other new technologies as a major challenge.

“There are parts of this that are revolutionary, and there are parts that need to be evolutionary,” he explains. “The best way to get somebody pointed in a different direction is to make them realize they haven’t done an 180-degree turn. Get them to realize, ‘I turned on my own, and I actually like the direction that I’m pointed in.’”

To encourage adoption, Box has pitched AI to employees as an enabler and amplifier, not as a technology that will replace their jobs, Malick says.

“We’re asking, What are the things that we can do now that we weren’t able to do before?” he says. “How can we apply your years of the experience and intellectual power toward other areas that we just couldn’t get to before?”

Box isn’t closely tracking how employees are using the time saved through AI tools, he adds. If employees are using the extra time to improve their quality of life, that’s ok, he says.

“Maybe they’re not working on the weekends at the end of the month closing the books,” he says. “Maybe they actually have weekends now and can spend more time with their families.”

Change across the organization

Other CIOs say the change management piece of the job has increased significantly in the past two to three years.

In recent years, CIOs have been pulled into change management roles within other parts of the business as teams identify AI opportunities, says Orla Daly, CIO at skills management company Skillsoft.

“As AI blurs the lines between technology, operations, and people strategy, the CIO role is becoming closer to that of a COO,” she adds. “Workforce strategy is folding in alongside technology strategy, so leading change now sits at the center of the role rather than being one piece of it.”

The rapidly changing technology landscape has also thrust change management to the forefront of the CIO role, she says. “The pace at which decisions need to be made has increased so dramatically that you can’t lead at a distance and expect strategy to translate cleanly into action,” Daly says.

Daly also notes that slow adopters aren’t always active resisters. Skillsoft’s 2026 Workforce Readiness Report found that while 86% of employees use AI tools at work only 24% feel fully equipped to use them effectively, and just 16% receive training before a new tool is introduced.

“That gap suggests an over rotation on tooling without understanding how it changes how work is executed,” she says. “In most cases, it’s uncertainty and a lack of confidence to take the first step, not a lack of interest.”

Daly and other CIOs suggest that mandating the use of a new tool is rarely the right approach.

“Requiring it can create activity, but activity isn’t the same as adoption,” she explains. “If you hand people tools without clear use cases, guardrails, and training, a mandate just accelerates inconsistent use, and you mistake activity for progress.”

NTT DATA focuses on employee AI fluency instead of mandated activity, and the CIO has a huge role to play, says Barry Shurkey, CIO at the company. The CIO role increasingly sits at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and people, he says.

“AI success is not just about moving quickly; it is about helping people understand the change, embrace it, and move forward with confidence,” he adds.

NTT DATA’s own research suggests that AI front-runners use AI to amplify the impact of experienced, highly skilled employees rather than to replace them, Shurkey says.

“As AI accelerates transformation, CIOs are doing more than implementing technology,” he adds. “They are redefining how people work, make decisions, create value, and just as importantly, managing the intensified resistance that’s driven by fear of job loss or control.”