Agentic AI is transforming the tech function, requiring CTOs and CIOs to move far beyond their traditional roles. Their transformed role has three pillars: accelerating AI-first technology within their own function, architecting the AI-first tech estate, and becoming a strategic AI partner in the C-suite.
CEOs who want their company to capture more AI value than their competitors do must champion this shift in tech leadership to give the upgraded AI/tech function the roadmap, ambition, and capabilities to deliver it.
The results can be dramatic. Inside the AI/tech function, we have seen an AI-first mindset accelerate delivery cycles for top software delivery teams by two to five times and boost productivity by 30% to 70%. Notably, we have seen tech leaders meaningfully contribute to organization-wide AI impact, such as a 5% to 10% uplift in front-office productivity.
The Pillars of the New AI/Tech Function
Two pillars of the new AI/tech function expand the existing mandate of the CTO or CIO.
Accelerating AI-First Technology
The AI/tech function must embrace a “customer zero” mindset that drives AI into engineering, operations, security, and data management. In addition to posing a technical challenge, this effort involves delayering and transforming the build-and-run functions, team structures, and operating models. In many instances, leaders will embed focused build squads within the business for rapid AI deployment and better coordination.
The savings can be significant and can help fund the rest of the AI transformation. For example, BCG worked with a tech hyperscaler to upskill engineers and product managers in an R&D function on agentic product development. Using tailored six-week adoption sprints, BCG’s coaching team was able to drive use of agentic coding tools broader and deeper than it had been the case after initial tool rollout alone. As a result, power users rose from 5% of the team to 50%, helping generate a productivity uplift among engineering teams of more than 100%.
Architecting the AI-First Tech Estate
The AI/tech function is responsible for designing and building an AI platform that can serve all facets of the business, connecting all deployed technologies with the telemetry, monitoring, and controls needed to scale AI agents effectively and safely. This agentic AI ecosystem calls for a comprehensive data layer that covers multiple data types, enforces privacy and ownership, protects against the rising threat of AI hacking, and puts security first. Typically, the ecosystem is vendor-neutral to maximize its ability to benefit from future innovation.
This kind of agent and AI platform helps deliver AI value today while laying the foundation for the more ambitious, autonomous assistants of tomorrow. It is an important weapon against AI “silent failure”—feared by 75% of tech leaders, according to BCG research—in which AI fails to deliver value and scale beyond a single use case.
Becoming a Strategic Partner in the C-Suite
The third and most critical pillar is a new mandate for the CTO or CIO to become a strategic partner who works with colleagues in the C-suite to drive AI-first transformation.
Traditionally, the CTO or CIO acts as a service provider without a seat at the table during strategic conversations. But today, tech leaders must rethink their role, and CEOs must ensure that the rest of the C-suite reimagines the way they work with their tech partners going forward.
The new partnership dynamic includes three especially crucial relationships:
- With the CFO. Here, the CTO or CIO must help the C-suite master the new economics of AI agents to drive efficiency and value, optimizing AI spending and making it transparent, predictable, and attributed so that the CFO can governed it as an effective portfolio. This responsibility includes helping the CFO categorize AI spending as opex, capex, or cost of goods sold. For a typical company, these processes can reduce token costs by around 40% over 12 months.
- With the CHRO. AI-first organizations need an agentic workforce strategy, and the tech leader’s collaboration will create it. Joint work on cultural shifts, skills, and AI-enabled career paths is critical. But the CTO or CIO must also work with the CHRO on a framework for assessing agentic performance, introducing effective governance controls as agents proliferate, and formulating agent onboarding/offboarding processes.
- With the Rest of the C-Suite. Working with the CEO and advancing the CEO’s vision for the organization, the CTO or CIO must work across the C-suite to reshape each function to be AI-first. This engagement extends to security: 89% of organizations have reported experiencing AI-enabled attacks, according to a BCG/GLG study, making the CRO or CISO collaboration a core part of tech leaders’ C-suite remit.
Key Questions for CEOs to Ask Tech Leaders
Because delivering on the promise of agentic AI is essential, CEOs are right to quiz their CTO and CIO on progress and, where necessary, coach them to deliver. Key questions can help assess whether the tech leader is progressing on the transformation.
- Accelerating AI-First Technology. How are you accelerating AI within your own function? What is the measurable impact?
- Architecting the AI-First Tech Estate. What is the blueprint? How will you implement it? What steps are you taking to prevent vendor lock-in?
- Becoming a Strategic Partner in the C-Suite.
- In association with the CFO: Do you have a central dashboard and model gateways for AI tooling costs? Are you mapping tool spending to business cases?
- In association with the CHRO: Have you collaborated with HR on designing human/agent teams? What is your skills strategy?
- In association with the rest of the C-suite: Are tech teams sufficiently embedded to deliver AI? Do you have measurement and appropriate controls?
The CTO or CIO is on the front line as organizations move rapidly to the new agentic operating model. The critical transition from service provider to strategic partner, in particular, will require tech leaders to rethink their role. CEOs need to monitor and guide this new and challenging shift as appropriate. Yet the payback can be immense. Organizations that successfully navigate this change will have an AI/tech function that is built to lead the agentic era.
The authors would like to thank Dylan Bolden for steering this initiative and to our Technology and Digital Advantage leadership team and functional experts—including Marc Schuuring, Benjamin Rehberg, Michael Grebe, Nicolas de Bellefonds, Kevin Lucas, and Djon Kleine—for their valuable input.
