The AI Acceleration Gap Is Becoming Every CIO’s Biggest Leadership Challenge

Today, I’m very happy to share a new report, Bridging the AI Acceleration Gap, from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and sponsored by Nexthink. It examines how employee-led AI adoption is reshaping the role of IT—and what technology leaders need to do next. 

Bridging the AI Acceleration Gap draws on a survey of 259 members of the Harvard Business Review audience, conducted between February and March 2026. Every respondent came from an organization already using AI and was involved in decisions about it. Seventy percent were senior managers, executives, or board members, while nearly half represented organizations with at least 10,000 employees. 

The report considers how technology leaders can respond—from strengthening change management and cross-functional collaboration to modernizing IT operating models, developing a digital employee experience strategy, and addressing data security and governance directly. 

Nexthink was proud to support this study. As I state in my foreword, across every industry, artificial intelligence is seen as the defining force that will help determine tomorrow’s winners and losers. This should be good news for technology leaders and executives. Ordinarily, AI would represent a tremendous opportunity for CIOs and their teams—another step in IT’s long evolution from cost center to strategic partner. 

Every previous major technology shift, after all, has only strengthened IT’s claim to strategic leadership. AI, however, may yet prove to be the exception to this historical rule: at the very moment that the business is looking to technology leaders for guidance, AI is reshaping the role of IT itself. 

The dynamics driving this shift are already visible. Employees are discovering, experimenting with, and integrating AI into their daily work long before many organizations have been able to articulate a clear AI strategy. By the time IT begins rolling out governance frameworks, operating models, and policies, it must consider software preferences, user behaviors, and ways of working that are already deeply embedded. 

Nor is the business looking to IT only to ensure AI is adopted “safely.” It continues to expect IT to accelerate transformation, unlock productivity, and ensure technology investments deliver meaningful outcomes. IT’s ability to sustain this leadership role will ultimately depend on its capacity to balance rapid adoption with effective governance and security. 

Throughout the history of digital transformation, the most successful organizations have understood that innovation and governance must advance together. AI raises the stakes, but it does not change that fundamental truth. 

The report draws on the experience of technology leaders and advisers confronting these questions firsthand. Darren Wright, founder of Solo IT Consulting and former vice president of IT at Honeywell, describes the visibility problem plainly: “We know people are using it but we don’t really know what they’re using it for, whether it’s doing good or harm.” That uncertainty sits at the heart of the report’s argument: organizations cannot govern AI effectively—or judge its value—without knowing how it is being used. 

Martha Heller, CEO of Heller Search Associates, places the issue in the wider context of the CIO’s changing mandate. “A CIO without transformational skills is a product person—they can do great product. A chief transformation officer without tech is anemic,” she says. Alongside contributions from Isaac Sacolick, president of StarCIO, and Wim Geurden, chief architect of enterprise technology at EY, these perspectives examine what CIOs must now bring together: technical judgment, governance, change leadership, and a clear understanding of the employee experience. 

I invite you to read the full report for a closer look at the findings and what they mean for the future of IT leadership.