The trend of hiring a VP of AI is becoming increasingly popular, with companies feeling pressured to have a dedicated executive to lead their AI efforts. However, this approach may be misguided and potentially detrimental to the company’s overall AI adoption.
The Silo Problem
Hiring a VP of AI can create a silo within the organization, where AI is seen as someone else’s responsibility rather than a pervasive aspect of every function. This is problematic because AI should be integrated into every team, from sales to customer success to product development.
The Importance of AI-First Culture
Companies that are successful with AI are those where AI thinking permeates every level of the organization. It starts at the top, with leadership actively experimenting with AI tools and demonstrating a genuine curiosity about AI applications. This culture of AI experimentation and learning cascades down through middle management and individual contributors, making AI fluency a core competency.
A Better Approach: Democratize AI Investment
Instead of concentrating AI expertise in one highly-paid executive, companies should consider democratizing AI investment. This can be achieved by:
- Creating AI experiment budgets for every team
- Implementing AI bounty programs to encourage problem-solving
- Making AI fluency a core competency and including it in performance reviews
When AI Leadership is Necessary
There are cases where dedicated AI leadership is necessary, such as when building AI as a core product feature or processing massive datasets that require specialized ML expertise. However, for most SaaS companies, AI transformation is about creating an organization where AI thinking is distributed and experimentation is encouraged.
The Bottom Line
The companies that will win with AI are those where AI is everyone’s job, not just the responsibility of one executive. You can’t hire your way to AI transformation; you have to build it, experiment by experiment, team by team, individual by individual.
