As AI reshapes the business landscape, CIOs face a pivotal moment: Their roles are expanding, shifting and, in some cases, being redefined entirely. Five years from now, CIOs may be looking at a radically different landscape thanks to these technologies.here’s how AI is redefining the role of the CIO and the key responsibilities CIOs are likely to take on in the years ahead.

Move from Human to Agentic Workforce management

CIOs have always played a key role in driving organizational and cultural change, especially when it comes to helping employees adapt to new technologies. With AI agents embedded in the workforce, CIOs may face a dual challenge: helping employees work alongside smart agents while making sure those agents are designed and governed to collaborate effectively with humans.

Only 17% of CIOs surveyed are doing this today, and 69% expect to do so by 2030, according to recent Gartner surveys.

CIOs will begin leading or co-leading workforce planning with chief human resources officers (CHROs) and other business function leaders to set roles and responsibilities, onboarding agents, and managing their performance.

They’ll be responsible for building a hybrid, “human-agentic” culture where employees navigate new questions such as “What is the agent’s role on my team?” or “how do I raise concerns about the agent?” They’ll also begin navigating and even creating new models for semi-autonomous employees, inc

But many CIOs now expect to take on a new kind of duty: managing the enterprise’s AI portfolio.This is a different discipline altogether, shifting the focus from cost and operations to top-line growth, product and service innovation, as well as AI-specific practices and outcomes. Indeed,90% of CIOs reported they either own or will own the enterprise AI portfolio within five years.

They will be responsible for managing the enterprise AI portfolio, the ethics of said portfolio, and beginning to measure ROI in terms of the new outcomes AI enables such as knowledge, foresight and innovation. This will be enabled by new teams and roles within the IT department, like AI ethicists and AI asset managers.## What CIOs May Stop Doing: Building and deploying Most AI

Before AI, CIOs and their teams led enterprise technology decisions, from vendor selection to system design and deployment. Today, 85% of CIOs report that IT primarily owns the talent required to deploy AI. However, within five years, that number drops to just 53%.

Related: Brilliant, But Blind: The Hidden Cost of Over Trusting AI

With AI guardrails and decentralized governance models, AI can guide nontechnical leaders in evaluating and deploying AI tools without the CIO losing control. This requires widespread AI literacy in the enterprise.CIOs will lead enterprise AI learning.

From Manager to Orchestrator

Instead of managing fixed annual IT budgets, cios will oversee more real-time, AI-driven IT budgets. They’ll operate more like conductors than gatekeepers. AI may even act as a budget stakeholder by proposing investments, backing them with predictive ROI and competing for funding. CIOs will need to balance human and machine priorities in a continuous multi-agent negotiation.

• Procurement: From Buyer to Ecosystem Curator.CIOs will shift from buying all-in-one platforms to assembling flexible, composable architectures. That means prioritizing interoperability and agility over long-term vendor lock-in. AI-powered procurement agents will scan markets, augment contract negotiation and manage supplier relationships.