CIO – Chief Information Officer CDO – Chief Digital Officer

Currently, the business technology landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, especially in technology leadership roles such as the CIO (Chief Information Officer) and the CDO (Chief Data Officer). Softtek, a global technology company, has highlighted in its recent White Paper ‘CIO Agenda 2024’ the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models like ChatGPT in the business environment.

The paper points out that CIOs will need to develop specific strategies for implementing AI in their organizations. This involves seeking opportunities to create or evolve business models, improve internal operations, define risk mitigation programs, and increase overall organizational efficiency. CIOs will face the challenge of extracting value from unstructured data and will need to be creative in leading intelligent companies in the future.

As for the specialization and diversification of roles, Softtek emphasizes the evolution of the CDO’s role. Traditionally, many responsibilities related to data and digital strategies fell under the CIO, but now there is a greater specialization with the emergence of the CDO, specifically focused on data management and strategic exploitation.

By 2024, it is expected that CIOs will assume more specialized roles or even that their figure will be fragmented into responsibilities targeted at areas such as AI, analytics, or systems. Some CIOs have begun to adopt the title of CTO to emphasize their focus on technological transformation. It is anticipated that more organizations will incorporate the figure of the CDO to maximize the use of data and develop data governance and regulatory compliance strategies.

Although CIOs and CDOs will work together in their vision and strategic technological focus, their responsibilities will be different. The CIO will manage the technology and infrastructure that supports the data, while the CDO will focus on its strategic exploitation.

Rafael Conde del Pozo, Director of Business Development, Strategy and Innovation at Softtek EMEA, comments: “The future is painting a much more specialized figure of the CIO, focused on areas such as artificial intelligence. Some have adopted the title of CTO to highlight their focus on technological transformation. Therefore, at Softtek, we expect that more organizations will integrate the role of the CDO to maximize data usage, focusing on developing governance strategies.” This observation underscores the importance of adapting to changing roles in the era of digital transformation.

Scroll to Top