The Chief AI Officer Role: Why It’s The CEO’s New Strategic Partner (Not IT Support)

I have seen a dangerous trend lately. Companies are scrambling to hire a “Chief AI Officer,” but they are treating it like a helpdesk ticket. They stick the role under the CIO, demand ten years of Python experience, and expect them to just “fix the AI stuff.”

It is a recipe for disaster.

I sat down with Nicolas Babin, an EU Digital Ambassador and an AI Expert, to set the record straight. The reality? This is a CEO-level mandate. The CAIO isn’t there to write code; they are there to rewrite your business model. They are the “Trust Officer” who has to walk the fine line between the marketing team (“Move fast!”) and the legal team (“Don’t get us sued!”).

If you want to know how to structure this role for 2026—and why your next CAIO might be a philosopher rather than a programmer—you need to listen to this.

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The 3 Pillars of the Modern CAIO (It’s Not About Code)

1. The Reporting Line: CEO vs. CIO Nicolas was crystal clear: “This role needs to report to the CEO the same way a COO reports to the CEO.”

If you bury AI under the IT department, it becomes a technology project. But AI is a business transformation project. The CAIO needs the authority to walk into HR, Finance, and Sales and enforce governance. If they are reporting to the CTO, they risk getting trapped in the technical weeds rather than driving the strategic vision.

2. The Diplomat in the C-Suite The biggest threat to AI adoption isn’t bad software; it’s bad culture. You have Marketing wanting to use generative AI for everything, and Legal screaming about copyright.

The CAIO is the diplomat. They need high emotional intelligence (EQ) to navigate these internal politics. As Nicolas put it, they are the “Trust Officer.” Their job is to ensure that when the company uses AI, the stakeholders—and the customers—actually trust the output.

3. Navigating the EU Compliance Minefield We aren’t just playing around with ChatGPT anymore. With the EU AI Act coming into full force, the risks are categorized from “Minimal” to “Unacceptable.”

A CAIO must understand these regulatory frameworks intimately. If your company accidentally strays into “Unacceptable Risk” territory (like behavioral manipulation), it’s game over. This requires a strategic mind that understands liability, not just a technical mind that understands algorithms.

Key Insights & Timestamps

• (00:00) – The Hook: What is a Chief AI Officer?
• (01:30) – The Vision: Setting the AI strategy and alignment.
• (03:15) – The Reporting Line: Why the CAIO must report to the CEO.
• (05:40) – Talent & Culture: Recruiting and developing AI teams.
• (08:00) – The Metrics: Defining what AI success looks like (ROI vs. Risk).
• (10:20) – The “Trust Officer”: Why soft skills and diplomacy are critical.
• (14:00) – EU AI Act: The 4 levels of risk you must know.
• (18:00) – Deep Fakes & Reputation: The dangers of data manipulation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Full Episode Transcript

(Transcript)

Nat Schooler: Chief AI Officer. What is that? 2026 EU compliance secrets. I’m here to talk with Nicholas Babin about this. And he is an EU digital ambassador and he’s an expert in AI and digital transformation technologies. And yeah, this is a this is a huge, huge kind of topic. We’re going to break it down quite simply. So I’m going to just just start really with what do chief AI officers actually do? And and what are they going to do in 2026?

Nicolas Babin: Um, yes, thank you, Nat. It’s great to be on the show again. Um, to me, the the there’s so much the chief AI officer, uh, has on its plate, if I can say. Um, the first one obviously has to set the AI vision and strategy, uh, for his his or her whole organization, uh, depending, you know, ensuring alignment with the business goals, the the the the competitive advantage, the, uh, innovation pathways, all this. Then I, um, there’s an overseeing of AI deployment, uh, ensuring that all the right technologies, all the different models like machine learning models, generative AI models, automations are selected, um, and also used across different types of products, services and internal process. Then I would add, um, he or she needs to ensure that infrastructure, data and platforms are ready, uh, for obviously the IT team, the data science, the engineering and operations. Um, governance is also something extremely important, especially if you do business in Europe or if you’re a European. And we’ll talk about, uh, AI act obviously, but you know, anything around governance, ethics, regulatory compliances, uh, that’s he needs to be led by the chief AI officer. I would push it even to say that in terms of talent and culture, uh, recruiting, developing leading AI teams, that will be he I mean, it’s responsibility for the the chief AI officer, whether he or she. Um, and also the last one, I will talk about metrics. Uh, to me, the the chief AI officer will need to, um, ensure that all the initiatives deliver measurable business values, um, and manage all the changes that are required in order to, uh, make AI not a simple project, but really a business transformation tool. Uh, that’s that’s how I would I would describe the chief AI officer.

Nat Schooler: Wow. Well, it’s it’s quite a complex role really in bigger organizations in particular because you’ve got all sorts of stakeholders that really see you as a bit of a threat in terms of, you know, I mean, certainly you’ve got you’ve got compliance officers, you’ve got, uh, chief information security officers, HR…

Nicolas Babin: HR… I mean a lot of things, yeah.

Nat Schooler: Yeah, there are so many different moving parts. It’s actually quite it’s quite a serious, uh, serious role this. And it’s quite an exciting, very well paid job actually that one. And something that, you know, I think if I was kind of studying again, that is something that I would look at look at doing myself because it’s a, um, it’s a game changer for businesses.

Nicolas Babin: No, there’s some key elements that are really crucial and I’ve seen that with a lot of reports I’ve read and also companies have helped. Uh, there’s some key elements that really need to, uh, be taken very seriously. For example, number one, the reporting lines. I have seen some CEOs saying, oh yeah, yeah, we need a chief AI officer. It’s great for trends and it’s great for the press. Well, actually the it’s more than the press, uh, here. Um, and we need to think seriously about reporting lines. To me, this role needs to report to a CEO, the same way a COO report to the CEO or the CTO will report to the CEO. That’s as important because if it’s not reporting directly to the CEOs, I have seen and I’ve read about the fact the the role that risks to being siloed. And so that that’s one point. Then the mandate also needs to be very clear with authority around budget, headcount, project prioritization, access to board. Extremely important that. Um, I would add the leadership structure also, uh, because he will need to he or she will need to work very closely with all the C-suite people in the company. So they need to have clear boundaries and collaborations are very needed because as you rightfully said, you know, it’s it’s about compliance, about HR, it’s about technology, it’s about strategy, it’s about a lot of things. So that’s very important. I mentioned uh earlier about the KPI and and the the the work that needs to be done in order to uh ensure that at least all the uh the AI work um done is uh is uh is clearly defined and they should the chief AI officers should define what AI success looks like in terms of percentage of revenue in terms of cost saving, speed to market, compliance metrics, ethics bias incident rate, all these. There’s also a huge culture and change management that is extremely important because to me, is in charge of the digital transformation of the company, he or she again, I’m sorry if I say he I mean he or she obviously all the time. Um, and and finally, um, if your strategy is based on how to implement AI products or AI uh mindset within then you definitely need a a chief AI officer.

Nat Schooler: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a real minefield and it can it can cause a lot of problems and frictions I imagine in between all sorts of different departments because there are people that are screaming out for new technologies as well. And actually they’re not allowed to use them because because the cybersecurity division, uh, has said, sorry, you can’t use this. It’s a risk. So it’s a very quite a complex role role this, isn’t it? So that, you know, people because it’s like it’s like if you don’t work out who needs what and how quickly they’re going to need it, right? Then people are risking all the data in that business as well. And this is this is the most crazy thing is they’re actually they’re actually damaging potentially the reputation of that business by using outside language models, that are and other tools that are not sanctioned by the business. And so that chief AI officer has to has to rank all of the items on their wish list, uh, to then discuss with the with the chief information security officer and other and the CIO, uh, and other stakeholders in order to to push them through, right? And these things can take too long. They can take they can take a very, very long time especially with all these new regulations that are kind of happening. And I know you’re you’re very clued up in the frameworks and requirements that are necessary. And so on to EU compliance, the chief AI officer’s primary responsibility, would you say that is their primary responsibility or or or?

Nicolas Babin: It’s one of them, but it’s it’s like the AI act for me needs to be the strategic mandate for the chief AI officer if I could say it. Because you know we talked about all the other responsibilities, compliance is definitely one of them and it’s let’s let’s put it this way without compliance and without considering the AI act as a strategic mandate, then there’s no space for a chief AI officer. So yes, it’s probably one of the most important one but considering that the others are also important if I if I make I don’t know if I make sense here.

Nat Schooler: Yeah, yeah, you do. I mean it’s it’s a risk reward thing, isn’t it?

Nicolas Babin: Exactly, exactly. And the AI act needs to be a framework that will be will define how AI must be designed, deployed and monitored within the European market. So that means there there pretty much if I thinking out loud here, you have three dimensions uh of what I just said. The first one is the regulatory understanding, obviously knowing the classification of AI systems. You remember I mentioned many times there are four risks in the AI act: Unacceptable risk, high risk, limited risk and minimal risk. So this needs to be understood because that’s how the AI act functions and understanding how this would affect the company’s AI portfolio. For example, let’s say you work for a company that has an unacceptable risk AI use, then you know your business is is is doomed. Uh, right? If it’s a minimal risk you need to add just a sentence say…

Nat Schooler: Can you give me an example? Sorry to interrupt.

Nicolas Babin: Take pictures of videos of people and with AI being able to recognize those people is is the fact that anything that’s around data manipulation, the the manipulation of behavior is totally totally forbidden by Europe. It’s really unacceptable because it’s it’s it’s like deep fake. But that’s interesting because but isn’t that what marketing does? Or are you talking about outside of marketing? Outside of marketing. Yeah, nice try. No, no, no, no. What I mean is like really like manipulating in a bad way. You know so so so you do something that really you you had not planned on doing or you know is bad but you think well nobody’s going to see me doing it and everything but AI AI would be around and would manipulate the data around that. I think the best example is deep fake. Right? When deep fake was just launched everybody was doing things for fun um around uh your boss, around your your partner, around friends or you know making them say anything that bad pretty much. And that’s what I mean by manipulation. Right? So so I was talking about three dimensions. The first one was the regulatory understanding so meaning understanding the four risks that’s that’s the basis of the AI act. The second one is the implementation leadership for me where you need to ensure that compliance is embedded within your products by design. Uh so which means that the chief AI officer needs to be um involved from very early on when the product starts to to to be thought through by by designers because you cannot add the compliance as an afterthought. It needs to be done like way ahead of the game. And the third dimension is about strategic alignment. Which means you need to turn compliance into a differentiator and that’s I just had a a very large uh conference at Lloyd’s of London uh at the end of September and that’s exactly what I told uh the people I was talking to and was the old library at Lloyd’s was full and was really interesting because I and people came back to me after and said you know turning compliance into a differentiator and making sure that trust, transparency and ethics becomes a competitive advantage is is like something that we never thought of. You know.

Nat Schooler: It is a competitive advantage. It’s a massive because yeah massive advantage.

Nicolas Babin: Exactly because you can say look I’m the first one to comply with the AI act, I’m the first one to comply with the the GDPR, uh you know it’s it’s all the all these things that actually makes you different than your competitor and that’s what you’re looking for. So if you use the AI act as a strategic mandate and you have those three dimensions covered you are coming out as a much stronger company. So the the alignment compared to your to your competitors is like you’re way above them. You’re coming out as um as as as products that are that are embedded with uh the AI acts if I can say and you’re coming out with uh with the fact that actually you are a trusted company because you understand the regulatory angle much more than anybody else. So you know the chief AI officer will be invited to talk to uh at conferences or become a a voice of authority. And that to me is essential. So really today at least if you do business in Europe even if you’re based in in China or you’re based in the US you need to have a chief AI officer who understands what needs to be done for the AI act. Um and and it’s essential uh I wouldn’t say it’s a most um important point but it’s it’s it’s definitely in the top two uh of the points that need that needs to be taken care of when you recruit one.

Nat Schooler: Right. It makes sense because the compliance no no it makes sense Nicholas. It’s just we talk about a lot of stuff and it’s actually more complex than people think and because you’ve got the GDPR as well as the EU AI act and then you’ve got these other things if you’re working towards other certifications as well then actually you need entire teams of people who are going to you know basically cross boxes uh and and tick tick boxes and you know and it is it’s a very administrative detail oriented role in my personal opinion uh the the uh the chief AI officer and and and they’re the people that need to keep an eye on this. So then there’s a whole insurance thing, a whole legal compliance uh piece which we need to think about. But in terms of landing a CAO CAO or CAIO doesn’t matter. Yeah CAO yeah. In terms of landing one of these roles before the 2026 deadline, what what do you think? Is that is that uh easy for people to do? What what sort of what sort of job are you going to come from um and then you know how you going to land one of these roles? I mean you know we’ve already sort of nailed it really. I mean you need to be very detail oriented. You need to know about AI. Do you do you think you need to be a programmer necessarily or or or or not?

Nicolas Babin: It would help. It would help to have done that at least in your past. Because then you would understand how a product is designed. Right? So you would understand uh all the where to im where to uh embed your your product uh is it back office is it front office is it um you know what type of development would be required so when you’re in front of a customer or or you’re at board level and they say how long would it take that you have a good understanding of the development process. So it would definitely help to be a to be a programmer. To me I I see this role as a a very senior role, one of the most senior role in the company. And I see this as a a role for somebody who has at least you know 20 25 plus years of experience because the person needs to have a very broad understanding of how a company is run, how the board impacts obviously decisions regarding budget regarding product development regarding all these and he needs some he needs somebody that is going to be very smart in the sense of uh diplomacy because as I mentioned when I when we first started to talk about it this role goes across so many different roles you cannot have somebody like a sales a CS CS chief sales officer for example coming in and taking that role because the person yes he will probably be good trying to negotiate but you need somebody who’s actually going to be genuinely um interested in in the in the um outcome for the company and it’s not a it’s a role where there’s no space for I. Uh there’s only space for we. Right. Right. Um so the chief AI officer role is really somebody who potentially could be um a CEO definitely but the CEO you know it’s his responsibility his or her’s responsibility to say this is the direction we’re taking and frankly I’ve taken all your all your advice all your points I’m we’re going this way. Here you’re more in the role of like trying to um negotiate and uh and uh and discuss with everyone. It’s a you need to be very open-minded to be a chief AI officer. It’s it’s definitely a role that’s going to embark everyone um in order to develop your own vision. Um so you have your own vision the person has his own vision and he needs to bring everybody on board with the the person. So for example if if you have to deal with technical issues the chief technical officer cannot take offense of that. Right? And so it’s a very transparent it’s it’s like the AI act about transparency and trust. That’s exactly it is. So the chief technical officer cannot think that oh well look I have this chief AI officer and he wants take my job then you know it’s not going to work. So the way it works and what I’ve seen and what I’ve you know working with Japanese who are also a very different culture uh I’ve seen it uh many many times uh the best way of of getting um of getting your plan approved and and your plan successful is to bring everybody on board and to be very upfront and transparent. So for example uh you need to decide on a technology for the AI products uh you don’t decide alone before even making a decision you go and talk to the chief technical officer saying what do you think? This is what I think what do you think? You are responsible for the technical angle of the whole company you have your own vision where you want to take this company do you think what I think would be good for the for the AI products could fit within your vision. Right? And when you present it to the board you say oh we’ve discussed it the CTO and I and this is what we believe in. Right? So so you always give credit to the people who needs to have credit for for the situation and and and you do it so early on that basically it’s it’s a decision that’s made with several people. But actually the catalyst of all this is really the chief AI officer but he cannot do anything alone. Am I being clear on this one?

Nat Schooler: Yeah yeah yeah. 100%. So so really it’s it’s I mean mindset is is one of the things that you need. Some some ideally some past programming experience so you can understand things. I think a bit of network architecture experience would probably also be good understanding that. Database experience. Database experience definitely. Yeah. But also understanding people and being a real people person being a good listener would actually that and attitude and willingness to learn are probably some of the best qualities I I think. Is there anything that we’ve missed from that from that list do you think Nicholas?

Nicolas Babin: Management experience. But you you kind of said it uh with somebody who knows how to listen. It’s it’s you’re looking for a leader not a manager. You know so it’s like a a door opener rather than somebody who’s going to be behind you every two seconds. Yeah. And you need to build I mean really again I’m I’m going back to the same point and it’s all about AI as well it’s only trust. You need to have trust in your data, trust in your people, trust in your processes, trust in your algorithm, trust in the compliance element, trust everywhere. This is really to me the chief AI officer is the trust officer.

Nat Schooler: Wow. Wow. So so are there any roles that you think would lend well to moving across? I mean obviously you’ve got the chief data officer, chief digital officer, you know chief information security officer perhaps…

Nicolas Babin: COO…

Nat Schooler: Chief operations operating officer.

Nicolas Babin: Chief information officer could also lead the course absolutely. Yep.

Nat Schooler: Yeah. Any any others that you can think of? I mean I think people have got multiple levels of experience when they’ve been in business for 20 25 years they might have started out as a programmer but out of all of that list do you think chief information security officers are probably less likely or or or or as likely? You think they’re all the same at that level? Just as likely.

Nicolas Babin: Yeah I mean again it needs to be and you said it very rightfully it’s a mindset job. So the right person with the the the the features if I could say or the the the right mindset um who says I want to be a chief AI officer and uh and I’m prepared to uh give up my own ego for the companies that person could do it. Even if I mean I would push it to see even an HR officer why not?

Nat Schooler: I was thinking I was thinking that because they’ve got the best listening the best listening and questioning abilities right?

Nicolas Babin: That’s it. But they need to have some technical background. So not all HR officer have technical background so that that’s that’s why. You know so maybe to me a CEO with with technical background, a chief information officer with obviously has technical background, the CDO chief data officer has technical background, uh but all these people you know I I’ve met CDOs CTOs CIOs that are very um they are very good in their jobs very good with the technology and really terrible at listening uh because they are you know in their own world. So these people cannot. So it really I don’t think we can think through saying well could a CIO move through yeah I think it needs to be the right person with the right mindset. That’s that’s the only thing. Anybody could do the job as long as they have technical background as long as they have management background as long as they have um uh product visibility vision background you know all all these that that that’s what would make them successful.

Nat Schooler: Wow. Wow. I think that’s fantastic. That that that really hopefully will help will help someone to understand what they need to be working on because you might be listening to this and thinking well hold on a minute I’m not really very happy in my career I want a change and actually you could position yourself in the next five years you could position yourself as a chief information uh chief chief AI officer if you wanted to because you know but it’s all about leadership skills it’s about the soft skills and those are becoming even more and more important these days and we dig into a lot of those uh at Monday Influencer. But Nicholas it’s always a pleasure really appreciate your time and thank you everyone for listening.

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