When Everyone Can Build, the CIO's Job Gets Bigger
CIO, Wednesday, October 21st, 2026
As AI lets business teams build their own software, the CIO's role shifts from controlling capability to providing judgment on what to build.
IT's authority used to rest on having capabilities nobody else had, but AI has ended that: a marketing team can now build a customer-facing prototype over a weekend with tools IT never evaluated.
The authors cite a survey in which 58% of AI users say they now produce work they couldn't a year ago, and warn that IT risks being bypassed as core technology decisions move to people who lack the context.
The constraint has shifted from the ability to build to agreeing on what to build, because product management, design and governance have not scaled as fast.
The authors argue that CIOs should provide clarity and disciplined judgment on where AI drives growth and avoid a string of costly experiments.