How CIOs feel agentic AI has changed their roles

Like newlyweds-to-be reciting vows on their wedding day, CIOs believe agentic AI has changed them for the better.

According to Salesforce’s second annual CIO study, which queried 200 global CIOs, some 61% of CIOs claimed to improve their leadership skills in preparation for agentic AI. More than half (57%) also said they boosted their storytelling and communication skills, as well as their communication and change management abilities (55%) for the tech.

In a Nov. 12 media briefing, Salesforce CIO Daniel Shmitt shared how his own storytelling skills have evolved because of the emerging technology. Shmitt was joined on the call by Adobe Population Health CIO Alex Waddell and DeVry University CIO Chris Campbell.

“A huge part of my job has become about enabling employees and helping them understand that AI can complement the work they do and isn’t here to just replace them, used correctly,” Shmitt said during the call.

Soft life. The findings come at a time when soft skills are seemingly having a moment in the broader tech industry. IT Brew previously reported that “communication” and “leadership” were keywords found in 49% and 23% of IT job postings, respectively. Technologists are also increasingly seeking out talent for AI-related roles who possess soft skills such as strong ethical judgment.

Moving on up. In addition to their boosted soft skills, CIOs feel more confident in their companies’ AI implementation progress. More than six in 10 (61%) say they are ahead of competition when it comes to AI, up from four in 10 (43%) last year.

Shmitt said establishing a good process and having a “clean data set” is what helped Salesforce scale AI within its organization.

“You have to have a solid process that you have faith in,” Shmitt said. “If we test, observe, modify, and repeat without really good, automated validation and a process to make that useful, I don’t think we would have come as far as fast as we did.”

Waddell said building trust in AI among his staff, which includes non-tech-savvy healthcare providers, and demonstrating the benefits of the tech was an important part of expanding it within Adobe: “If we didn’t get it, we wouldn’t be adopting AI.”