When generative AI entered the enterprise, many companies correctly identified the chief information officer–chief human resources officer (CIO–CHRO) partnership as the power team for the AI era. The logic made sense. AI was new technology. It would change skills, roles, and how people worked. Surely the leaders of technology and talent, working hand-in-hand, were the right stewards to drive the transformation. In many ways, they were. It was precisely to study how this partnership played out in practice that we convened the Radical Innovators Collaborative (RIC), a practitioner-led community of CIOs, CHROs, and business leaders working inside real AI transformations.
However, within the first wave of AI rollouts, a hard truth emerged: Something was missing. Despite rapid experimentation, tool deployment, and workforce enablement, many organizations failed to see the financial gains they expected. Productivity improvements were marginal. Cost reductions were hard to prove. In some cases, AI simply added complexity rather than eliminating it.
What RIC surfaced was not a failure of leadership or ambition, but a structural gap in ownership. A broader set of executive decisions, beyond technology and talent alone, shaped AI outcomes. Funding models, operating rhythms, incentive structures, risk tolerance, and accountability for business outcomes all played a decisive role in whether AI translated into real enterprise value. The CIO and CHRO could enable AI, but they could not, on their own, redefine how the enterprise operates. That realization marked the shift from a CIO-CHRO power team to a broader executive alliance, one that includes the chief financial officer and chief operating officer as co-owners of AI’s economic and operational impact.
In the absence of deeper operational and financial ownership, leaders often treated AI like previous generations of technology:
As a result, leaders absorbed AI into the organization as a traditional productivity enhancer, not as a force for transformation. Employees used AI to draft documents, summarize meetings, and speed up individual tasks. However, the underlying structure of work remained unchanged. Decision rights stayed fragmented. Handoffs multiplied. Human effort was still organized around workflows designed for a pre-AI world.
This is why so many AI initiatives plateaued. They optimized the old system instead of reinventing it.
The missing link was not more technology or more training. It was enterprise ownership of how work, value, and economics connect.
Without the COO deeply involved, AI was rarely embedded into end-to-end workflows where real productivity is won or lost. Without the CFO as a co-architect, return on investment expectations were vague, measurement was inconsistent, and cost savings remained theoretical.
The CIO and CHRO could enable AI. However, they could not, on their own, redefine how the enterprise actually operates. AI-first transformation demands exactly that.
The companies breaking through the AI plateau aren’t waiting for perfect strategies. They’re adopting a small set of high-return practices that force real collaboration, accelerate learning, and hard-wire ROI into transformation.
HRP: Run quarterly, cross-functional workflow redesign sprints led jointly by the CIO, CHRO, COO, and CFO in tandem with the business partners or small and medium enterprises.
Return: Faster cycle times, fewer handoffs, and measurable productivity gains.
HRP: Replace “AI usage” dashboards with workflow-level ROI scorecards.
Return: Clear line of sight between AI investment and financial performance.
HRP: Create and pilot AI-native role charters.
Return: Higher productivity per role and faster adoption without burnout.
HRP: Embed AI directly into operational workflows, not as separate tools.
Return: AI becomes invisible but indispensable which drives execution, not distraction.
HRP: Align workforce investments with AI-driven value creation.
Return: Lower labor costs, higher output, and smarter capital allocation.
HRP: Assign shared ownership of AI outcomes across the quartet.
No one hands off AI to another function, and the business partners ultimately own business outcomes at the workflow level.
Return: AI stops being an initiative and becomes a permanent operating capability.
The organizations now pulling ahead have learned this lesson quickly. They’ve moved beyond asking: “How do we help employees use AI?” Instead, they ask, “How must work itself change when AI is always available?”
That shift requires a broader power alliance, one where the CIO, CHRO, CFO, and COO jointly redesign how value is created, how work is done, and how performance is measured. AI doesn’t create value because people use it. It creates value when enterprises are redesigned around it. That’s why the original CIO-CHRO power team needs to evolve.
Originally published at Inc.com