This article was written by Sahin Boydas, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor in over 200+ AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale AI, and Hugging Face.

Why Your "Chief AI Officer" Is Probably a Waste of Money

Let’s be honest. If your company just hired a Chief AI Officer, you’re probably already behind.

I know that sounds harsh. I’m sure they’re a very smart person. But I’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t have a happy ending. Hiring a CAIO is a panic move. It’s a signal to Wall Street and your board that you’re “doing AI,” but it’s mostly for show. It tells me your leadership team doesn’t have a real grip on the most profound technological shift of our lifetime.

Back in 2010, everyone was scrambling to hire a “Chief Social Media Officer.” A few years later, it was the “Chief Digital Officer.” These roles were created because the C-suite didn’t understand the internet and wanted to throw a title at the problem. They wanted a magical person to come in and sprinkle some “social” or “digital” dust on the company. It never, ever works.

AI is not a department. It’s not a project. It’s the new electricity. It’s going to be everywhere. Your CEO, your CTO, and your Head of Product—they are the ones who need to be leading this charge. If they’re outsourcing that thinking to a new hire, you’re in for a world of pain.

The Fantasy of the AI Savior

When I was building my first company, MovieLaLa, we were just a small team trying to figure out how to get people to discover new movies. When the iPhone came out, we didn’t hire a “Chief Mobile Officer.” That would have been absurd. We all became mobile fanatics. Our engineers, our designers, me—we lived and breathed mobile. We had to. The responsibility was shared because the opportunity was shared.

That’s how you build a company that can actually innovate. You don’t just bolt on new technology; you weave it into the fabric of how you operate. Hiring a CAIO is the ultimate bolt-on. It creates a convenient scapegoat for when things go wrong and lets everyone else off the hook. It’s a way for the rest of the leadership team to say, “Don’t look at me, AI is Susan’s problem.”

This is a fatal mistake. AI will touch every single corner of your business. It will change how you build products, how you talk to customers, how you manage your finances. Your CEO needs to be your Chief AI Strategist. Your CTO needs to be your lead AI architect. If they aren’t, you’re already toast.

My Life as a Founder and Investor

I didn’t get to invest in companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale AI, and Hugging Face by hiring a consultant to tell me what was hot. I did it by rolling up my sleeves and doing the work. I spent thousands of hours reading papers, talking to researchers, and playing with the models myself. I developed my own point of view about where this was all going. You can’t delegate that kind of conviction.

At my last company, RemoteTeam, we were using AI to help companies manage their international teams way before it was cool. We didn’t have a CAIO. We had a team of engineers and product people who were obsessed with solving our customers’ problems. AI was just another tool in the toolbox, and we used it. That’s a huge reason why Gusto acquired us. We built a product that was ahead of its time because we built AI into our DNA from day one.

So, What Should You Do Instead?

If hiring a CAIO is a mistake, what’s the right play? It’s not as easy, but it’s the only way to actually win.

1. Force Your C-Suite to Get Their Hands Dirty. No more excuses. Your entire leadership team needs to be using this stuff. Daily. They should have ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney open in their browser at all times. They need to understand the difference between a transformer and a diffusion model. I’m not saying your CEO needs to start writing code, but they need to have a gut feeling for what this technology can do. You can’t steer the ship if you don’t understand the ocean you’re sailing on.

2. Unleash Your Teams. Stop trying to centralize AI. Instead, create a culture where anyone can experiment. Give your product managers, engineers, and marketers a budget and the freedom to try crazy ideas. The best ideas won’t come from a committee. They’ll come from the people who are closest to your customers and your data. Start an internal contest for the best AI-powered feature. Run a hackathon. Your goal is to make everyone an AI person, not to hire one AI person.

3. Hire for AI, Not for an AI Title. Don’t look for a CAIO. Instead, make AI fluency a non-negotiable for your next VP of Marketing, your next Head of Product, and your next Director of Engineering. You want leaders who think in AI. You want a marketing leader who can dream up a campaign using generative video, not just talk about it. You want a product leader who sees a dozen ways to use AI to make the user experience better.

The Real Transformation

I get it. The pressure is on. Your board is nervous, your investors are asking questions, and you see your competitors shipping AI features. Hiring a CAIO feels like you’re taking action. It’s a nice, clean press release.

But it’s a sugar high. It’s the easy answer, not the right one. The real work is much harder and much messier. It’s about fundamentally rewiring your company’s DNA. It’s about changing how your leaders think, how your teams work, and who you hire.

Don’t hire an AI savior. Build an army of them. That’s how you’ll build a company that doesn’t just survive the AI revolution—you’ll lead it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the most common pushback you get on this?

People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.

Do all experts agree with this view?

No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.

What experience informs this perspective?

This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.