CIO role in unlocking strategic value: How to determine and implement AI use cases

Without question, CIOs play a critical role in pinpointing high-value use cases for AI. CIO Nicole Coughlin, who leads IT for the Town of Cary, N.C., put it this way: “Our job is to listen, really listen, for patterns and pain points in how work gets done,” Coughlin said. Without this linkage between the CIO and the business, real AI value cannot be created, she said. Pedro Antonio Martinez Puig, vice president of information services at Sibelco Group, described the CIO’s role in identifying high-value AI use cases as connecting ambition with reality. “This starts with a deep understanding of the business portfolio, operational pain points and strategic priorities — because AI should never be a technology experiment; it must solve real problems and create measurable value,” Puig said. With their observations in mind, let’s consider the general role of CIOs in AI, followed by an examination of how to identify the AI use cases they deem will bring value and why CIOs must be the translators of business value.

CIO’s role in AI

When considering the CIO’s role in AI, I believe it involves the following three components:   The CIO is the organization’s AI educator. It is critical to close the gap between understanding AI and growing the use of it. Behavioral scientist David De Cremer states in “The AI Savvy Leader” that CIOs need to help their business leaders recognize the benefits of AI for their organization and its broader stakeholders. That will require making business leaders capable of asking questions, including about the data that enables AI. The CIO acts as co-creator and catalyst for change. Whether CIOs are acting as AI co-creators or AI catalysts, the goal is the same: to ensure that AI is purpose-driven and that ethical questions are addressed early. This requires CIOs to be both a visionary for AI and a champion of AI visionaries in the business. For this to work, everyone must remember that AI supports what the organization stands for. “In local government, this often means finding where AI can help people make better decisions, automate repetitive tasks or improve equity and access,” Coughlin said, adding that it’s wise to start small, measure often and share successes to inspire others to try. The CIO is closely aligned with the CEO. As the ultimate business sponsor for all business investment, the CEO is essential in ensuring the organization embraces continuous learning and understands business agility. CIOs need a CEO who is as committed to staying current on technology trends as they are to financial performance. At the same time, change-hardened CIOs need their CEOs’ support in making employees part of the change process from the start. This means having technical and nontechnical teams work side by side. As Puig explained: “In my experience, this means working closely with business leaders to translate challenges into opportunities.” In his organization, predictive safety in operations, AI-driven customer insights and end-to-end supply chain traceability are areas where technical and nontechnical teams work side by side.

AI in action: Key AI use cases

As I discussed in a previous article in this series on the AI-savvy CIO, there are three types of AI to master: analytical, generative and agentic AI. Here, I will describe each from the perspective of use cases categories. Analytical AI. Of the three types, analytical AI has been around the longest. It uses historical data to make predictions and it has been applied to business problems, such as customer churn modeling, A/B testing, and personalization. It has also been widely used for anomaly detection and resource allocation. Generative AI. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 catapulted generative AI (GenAI) into the public realm. This type of AI has been used in the enterprise for personal productivity, learning and creative applications, with the goal of empowering employees to use AI within their daily jobs. In “HBR Guide to Generative AI for Managers,” Elisa Farri and Gabriele Rosani suggest that GenAI can be used for four unique purposes: Agentic AI. As described previously, agentic AI combines analytical, generative AI and workflow to create new or improved business capabilities. A capability is the ability to consistently deliver a specified outcome, relevant to your business. Agentic capabilities are about automation and intelligent orchestration. Emerging research out of Harvard Business School and the Digital Data Design Institute shows that AI agents are becoming more than just sidekicks for human workers. They’re becoming digital teammates, effectively creating a new talent category. In “Agentic AI Is Already Changing the Workforce,” published in the Harvard Business Review’s May 22, 2025 edition, authors Jen Stave, Ryan Kurt and John Winsor recommend that CIOs and business leaders define competencies for human and non-human candidates. This includes identifying the tasks that can be done better, faster, or more cost-effectively by AI agents. A key element involves CIOs helping their organization actively shape how Agentic AI is integrated into the enterprise’s labor strategy. Success starts by deconstructing each role or project into their component tasks and outcomes. This is just as you would define competencies for human candidates. In my role as an industry analyst, each of the tools that I have seen demoed enable this work to be captured prior to enabling automation. Here, CIOs can play a critical role in helping their organizations envision new ways to procure and deploy talent, including full-time employees, temporary hires, freelancers, and AI. And finally, it involves ensuring that metrics and KPIs demonstrate that business outcomes are delivered through a combination of people and AI.

CIO as AI value translator

Throughout this process, experienced CIOs can play an invaluable role as translators — turning technical opportunities into business value. This involves assessing AI opportunities for business efficiency and business transformation, much like seasoned venture capitalists would. Here, CIOs help identify what truly matters to the business. Their job is to prioritize high-impact, achievable outcomes over easy wins. Puig notes that this includes “escaping the trap of endless pilots without clarity on how success will be measured or how solutions will scale. The CIO must bring the architectural perspective to ensure feasibility within existing platforms and the financial discipline to prioritize based on ROI and strategic impact,” Puig said. Ultimately, the CIO needs to act as a bridge, turning data into decisions and innovation into outcomes. “CIOs have traditionally had to pick one path and hope it was the right one, reacting to historical data and making the best decisions with limited visibility,” said Ben Schein, chief analytics officer at Domo. Agentic AI changes this. It gives CIOs the ability to explore multiple paths in parallel, anticipate outcomes and course-correct in real time. The opportunity is there not just to tell the businesses what happened, but to help them see what’s possible. CIOs who can act as bridges between technology and the business are worth their weight in gold. The most effective CIOs serve as educators, co-creators and catalysts for change, while remaining tightly aligned with business priorities. AI-savvy CIOs, in particular, recognize the distinct opportunities each type of AI presents and play a critical translator role, converting AI capabilities into sustained operational efficiency and meaningful business transformation.