Info-Tech Research Group CEO Tom Zehren told attendees at the company’s annual conference Tuesday that only half of CIOs have a dedicated AI strategy that is board-governed and focused exclusively on AI. Organizations that do have one triple their odds of extracting value from the technology, according to Info-Tech’s survey data.

The gap matters because agentic AI adoption is stalling at the proof-of-concept stage across enterprises. Security measures, IT budgets, strategy alignment, and employee buy-in all factor into whether CIOs can move from pilot to production. “We’re living in a world where we have a significant tension between AI value creation on the one side and AI governance and risk management on the other side,” Zehren said, according to CIO Dive.

More than one-third of organizations now include AI governance in their regular IT strategy. But many remain stuck because they default to blocking AI projects entirely, which eliminates risk and value simultaneously.

The Four-Step Framework

Zehren presented a framework built from survey responses and industry research:

1. Set the AI foundation. Establish mandates covering AI literacy, an operating model, a budget, and an ownership structure.

2. Pick projects with longevity. Use clean data, smart architecture, partnerships, and agile funding to select initiatives that will survive past the pilot phase.

3. Build governance muscles through sandboxes. Create safe experimentation environments where employees can test limits and the organization trains the governance structures established in step one.

4. Prove value or kill. Track benefits, scale prototypes that work, collect insights, and shut down those that don’t deliver.

The Changing CIO Role

Zehren argued that CIOs who successfully navigate agentic AI adoption will expand their organizational influence. The role is shifting toward managing and orchestrating system overhauls rather than running infrastructure. CIOs are increasingly taking on responsibilities in digital transformation, data, and product departments.

A separate Deloitte survey found that 67% of CIOs say they aspire to become CEO. “CIOs have to step up to become exponential IT leaders and really drive exponential value for the organizations using the technologies,” Zehren said. “If you do that, there’s a ton of new career pathways that open up.”

His advice on staffing: don’t cut teams in response to AI capabilities. “Don’t fire half your team, don’t reduce capacity massively in IT,” Zehren said. “Repurpose it.”

The Governance Bottleneck

The data reinforces a pattern NCT has tracked across enterprise AI coverage this year. The bottleneck for agentic AI in large organizations is governance, strategy alignment, and organizational readiness. Enterprises that treat AI adoption as a technology problem without board-level strategy are the ones watching their pilots stall at POC indefinitely.