Many business leaders are thinking about hiring a Chief AI Officer (CAIO).
You might be in the same boat. After all, you read LinkedIn’s Future of Work Report. The report suggests the number of “Head of AI” roles has more than tripled in five years. You know you should get across AI.
You also have a vague understanding of how your business could strategically use AI to get a leg over your competitors.
However, CAIOs are costly, and you’re not sure you can justify the expense right now.
What should you do?
There are plenty of options. One of these is to hire a fractional chief AI officer. (More on this shortly.) Another is to make use of what you’ve got.
Let’s dig deeper.
Making the most of what you’ve got
If you have a data science team, your business may not need a chief AI officer. AI is like an app that sits on top of your data. So really, it’s just another data product. Your data science team can figure this out.
So, if you’re not in tech and AI isn’t core to what you’re building, a CAIO probably isn’t necessary right now.
However…
A fractional chief AI officer may be exactly what you’re looking for
A fractional chief AI officer is a seasoned executive with AI expertise, available to your business at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.
Here’s the kicker: Hiring a chief AI officer fractionally can be superior to hiring full-time. That’s because AI — especially generative AI — is such a new technology that breadth of experience across multiple companies can give fractional execs an edge over their full-time counterparts.
Lots of AI officers prefer the fractional setup, too. It’s often young companies that hire fractionally, so these execs can have a more significant impact than they would at a huge conglomerate.
What does a fractional chief AI officer do?
The primary role of a fractional chief AI officer is to make sure your AI initiatives get the kind of leadership and cross-functional attention they need.
A common mistake is giving AI problems to IT and telling your CTO to run with them. Instead of generating tangible value for your business, they’ll likely waste time playing around with fancy new technology just for the sake of it.
How can a fractional chief AI officer help your business or startup?
There are three key areas where fractional chief AI officers help businesses like yours.
Key area #1: Productivity
With ongoing market challenges, your competitors are looking to improve cash flow and lower spending in 2024. This is why increasing productivity will be a key driver for generative AI adoption.
A recent BCG study found that generative AI can drive significant improvements in workflows, operations, and internal tooling. Participants who used GPT-4 completed 12% more tasks on average and 25% quicker than the control group without GPT-4.
A fractional chief AI officer can help deliver AI tool training to make your team more productive.
Key area #2: Customer experience
Customers are a lot more choosy these days. They expect drastically better – and more personalized – digital experiences. They’ll switch to your competitor if you don’t remember who they are or anticipate their needs. Generative AI can bring personalization to your digital experiences.
Key area #3: Product innovation
A fractional chief AI officer can help your business integrate generative AI into legacy flows and core systems. This will improve efficiency, reduce cost, and create momentum for the more advanced AI projects that will pay for themselves.
Convinced that a fractional chief AI officer could be what you’re looking for?
We can help.
Here at Gun, we’ve helped hundreds of companies – from Fortune 500s to startups – hire top talent fractionally with years of experience. And because we know communication is vital, we’ll help you hire execs who are fluent in English.
Contact us today to find out more!
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