In September, Mayo Clinic in Arizona created the first position of its kind in a hospital system: chief artificial intelligence officer.
Doctors at the Arizona facility, which includes facilities in Phoenix and Scottsdale, have been experimenting with AI for years. But after the release of his ChatGPT in 2022 and the ensuing enthusiasm for the technology, hospitals decided they needed to work further with his AI and find someone to coordinate their efforts.
So executives appointed Dr. Bhavik Patel, a radiologist who specializes in AI, to the new position. Dr. Patel then piloted a new AI model that could help speed the diagnosis of rare heart diseases by looking for hidden data within ultrasounds.
“We’re trying to drive some of these data and AI capabilities across every department, every department, every work group,” said Dr. Richard Gray, chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic in Arizona. We are taking this seriously.” The role of chief AI officer was created because “it’s helpful to have a coordinating function with deep expertise.”
Many have long feared that AI will take away jobs. But the technology boom is spurring law firms, hospitals, insurance companies, government agencies, and universities to create the hottest new role in corporate America and beyond: senior AI executives.
Law firms such as Equifax credit bureau, manufacturer Ashley Furniture and Eversheds Sutherland have appointed AI executives in the past year. In December, The New York Times named an editorial director for its AI initiative. And last year, more than 400 federal departments searched for a chief AI officer to comply with President Biden’s executive order that established safeguards for AI technology.
A total of 122 people with the title of head of AI or vice president joined the company review site Glassdoor’s forums last year, up from 19 in 2022, according to Glassdoor.
Jobs for AI executives are emerging as organizations want to take advantage of innovative technologies, said Randy Bean, founder of NewVantage Partners, a consulting firm that advises companies on data and AI leadership. said. At the same time, he added, “Organizations want to say, ‘Yes, we have a chief AI officer,’ because that makes the organization look good.”
Other executive positions have also been created in response to major technological and economic changes. In the 1980s, advances in computing power led to a proliferation of chief information officers and chief technology officers. These officers typically oversee how technology is used and developed within the company. After the 2008 financial crisis, chief data officers were appointed to comply with new regulations and manage how companies use data.
Companies and organizations with AI executive roles are looking for people who can help them understand the risks and opportunities of the technology and how it could change the way people work. I am.
In May, health insurance company Florida Blue promoted Svetlana Bender to vice president of AI and behavioral sciences to do just that. One of her first AI projects was piloting an in-house chatbot that would help computers write code and analyze customer data.
Dr. Bender, who previously served as Florida Blue’s director of technology solutions, said her team plans to train the chatbot based on customer data and make it available to all employees.This month, she hired her AI director to help with that task.
“We want to move forward as quickly as possible” in using this technology, while ensuring that customers’ insurance data remains secure, he said.
Consulting firm Accenture added a chief AI officer in September as customers’ interest in technology increases. The company has promoted Lan Guan, who worked on global data and AI, to a role advising clients on how to incorporate AI into their businesses. Accenture also builds AI tools for the insurance industry and elsewhere.
This new work “underlines our ambitions in the market and how optimistic we are about the huge potential for our clients in AI,” Guan said.
At Western University in Ontario, computer science professor and chief information officer Mark Daley took on the new role of chief AI officer in October. He still teaches, but has left his position as chief information officer.
Since then, Dr. Daly has focused on establishing more than 30 pilot AI projects, including working with research and finance teams to automate audit processes and working with humanities faculty to develop new courses. Ta.
“We are in an era where the best approach to generative AI is actually exploration and experimentation,” he said.
Some experts said technology is changing rapidly and could soon overtake that role. A Harvard Business Review article last year co-authored by NewVantage’s Bean found that AI and data chief executives are being set up to fail because their jobs are “technologies that pose tremendous risks and opportunities.” “This is because it is an act of high-pressure balancing act.” ”
Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist, said AI will also evolve from a novel technology to something that’s part of everyone’s work. “AI will span many roles, and AI will become deeply ingrained in certain roles,” she says.
Some chief AI officers said their work has staying power. Dr. Patel, of the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, said a big part of his new job will be communicating with other doctors and regulators like the Food and Drug Administration to identify how AI can streamline medical operations. That’s what he said.
“There are still many gaps in modern medicine,” he said. “This is where I think artificial intelligence can be used wisely to close or at least reduce that gap.”
