The boardroom challenge: AI that actually works
AI remains the hottest topic in UK boardrooms, but business leaders face a harsh reality: you can’t simply plug in AI and expect transformative results. The real challenge lies in embedding artificial intelligence into the enterprise DNA, a fundamental transformation that demands bold, commercially-minded CIOs with the vision to reshape organisations from the inside out.
The UK adoption landscape: Promise vs reality
In 2025, 39% of UK businesses actively use AI, with another 31% seriously considering implementation. Crucially, employees are running ahead of their organisations with over 70% of employees using AI report significant time savings in their daily work.
This highlights a critical gap, enthusiasm at the individual level and hesitation at the structural level. The result: organisations that struggle to scale AI meaningfully and securely across business functions.
What’s missing isn’t interest in AI adoption, but rather the foundational infrastructure, robust security frameworks, cross-team collaboration mechanisms, and strategic direction needed to unlock AI’s full potential. This disconnect underscores the vital need for a forward-thinking CIO who can establish governance structures, implement comprehensive AI policies, and craft a cohesive company-wide strategy.
Finding the right CIO for your AI journey
In every CIO search we’ve conducted in 2025, AI enablement has emerged as a core deliverable, up from 77% last year. But AI isn’t merely another addition to the IT stack; it serves as a catalyst for enterprise-wide transformation and disruption.
This evolution has made the role of the CIO more commercially critical than ever before. Today’s effective technology leaders must determine whether their organisation truly needs AI-led transformation, or if targeted automation and selective AI implementation would deliver comparable results with less disruption.
As Michael Brown noted in our Talking Tech Series: “In the race to adopt AI, don’t lose sight of what makes a good strategy. We shouldn’t do something for the sake of doing it.”
So how do you hire for “AI experience” when so few organisations have achieved meaningful results? The answer lies in identifying CIOs who prioritise business imperatives first (P&L, growth, culture) and technology second.
Five essential dimensions for CIO assessment
When evaluating technology leaders for your AI initiatives, boards should explore these critical dimensions:
- Driving cultural change
Can the CIO reframe AI as everyone’s responsibility rather than an IT department project?
Look for leaders who have cultivated curiosity-driven cultures that encourage thoughtful experimentation while establishing appropriate enterprise guardrails. Ask candidates:
- “How have you shifted organisational mindsets from fearing AI to exploring its possibilities?”
- “What specific rituals and incentives have you introduced to encourage AI adoption across different business functions?”
- Enabling grassroots adoption
AI adoption rarely begins with top-down mandates. Forward-thinking CIOs amplify existing grassroots energy by providing employees with safe, sanctioned tools and building communities that spread organically throughout the organisation. Probe with questions like:
- “How have you identified and harnessed early AI adopters within your organisation?”
- “What specific policies did you implement to balance innovation with security and compliance?”
- Prioritising proof of concepts that deliver value
AI pilots often become scattered experiments that never scale. Effective CIOs select use cases directly linked to meaningful business outcomes and strategic priorities. Ask potential candidates:
- “What criteria guide your decisions when selecting AI use cases: efficiency improvements, enhanced customer experiences, or revenue generation?”
- “How do you determine when a proof of concept is ready for full-scale implementation or should be discontinued?”
- Streamlining back-office operations
While AI discussions often focus on customer-facing innovations, significant wins frequently lie in optimising repeatable back-office processes across finance, HR and IT operations. Explore this dimension by asking:
- “Where have you successfully deployed AI or automation to eliminate internal friction points or reduce operational costs?”
- “How did you quantify those efficiency gains and reinvest the resulting value elsewhere in the business?”
- Navigating uncertainty with confidence
With limited established benchmarks for AI success, effective CIOs continuously learn, iterate rapidly, and maintain credibility with boards and investors through transparent communication. Assess this capability by asking:
- “How do you manage stakeholder expectations in a field dominated by hype that requires substantial groundwork before delivering meaningful results?”
- “How do you balance ambitious innovation with responsible experimentation?”
- “What significant challenges or setbacks have you encountered when implementing AI initiatives, and what valuable lessons did you learn?”
The leadership imperative
As AI adoption accelerates, boards increasingly recognise that the critical barrier isn’t simply a shortage of technical specialists, it’s a scarcity of transformative leadership capable of driving meaningful change. This reality intensifies the demand for commercially astute technology leaders who can bridge the gap between technological possibilities and business imperatives.
Whether your organisation has maintained pace with digital innovation, faces potential disruption from AI-powered competitors, or has historically underinvested in technology, La Fosse Executive can advise on the optimal CIO profile to match your specific needs and ambitions for enhancing AI literacy and value creation.
Contact us today to unlock your organisation’s true potential through transformative technology leadership.
Sources:
- Moneypenny, 2025
- TechRadar, 2025
- EnterpriseTimes, 2025