Sixty-three percent of IT leaders said their roles have evolved due to advances in AI, according to Atera’s newly released Leading Enterprise IT with AI report.
With AI, the CIO mandate evolves to strategic business value
Conducted by Censuswide, the study surveyed more than 1,000 CIOs and VPs of IT in enterprise organizations in the US and highlights how AI has reshaped the role of IT and its leadership — shifting it from a traditional support function to a driver of strategy and business value.
According to the report, nearly half (49 percent) of the respondents identified business value leadership, such as shaping strategy and translating AI into growth, as the top area of increased importance in the advent of AI.
In addition, 47 percent of CIOs and IT leaders believe that they are now tasked with orchestrating human-AI collaboration as a key change in their roles.
“AI may be transforming operations, but it’s IT leaders who are transforming the enterprise. The data is clear: AI agents have unlocked an entirely new reality, one where they are capable of anticipating, learning, and taking actions autonomously.” said Gil Pekelman, chief executive officer at Atera.
“The CIO mandate is now to lead enterprise IT with AI—driving measurable business value across the organization,” Pekelman added.
Concretely, respondents noted that AI is already improving their day-to-day operations. 74 percent said nearly half of their Tier-1 support tasks — like repetitive troubleshooting or routine requests — could be reduced by implementing autonomous AI agents.
“As AI elevates support, routing, diagnostics, and knowledge-sharing, that lost time is being recaptured, unlocking measurable enterprise-wide gains,” said Atera in its official press release for the report.
Integrating AI across the business
Beyond changing expectations, the report revealed that CIO mandates now extend beyond managing a company’s IT infrastructure. The leaders said their strategic decision-making scope now includes:
- Customer experience (41 percent)
- Human resources (41 percent)
- Finance (39 percent)
- Ethics & compliance (39 percent)
- Operations (38 percent)
Atera said this expansion illustrates how AI is turning IT from a “cost center into a catalyst for enterprise-wide value creation.”
In addition, 71 percent of IT leaders say AI is now embedded in non-IT departments such as HR, operations, and finance, further showing the far-reaching impact of AI across business functions.
AI ownership and execution as key challenges
Despite its growing adoption, the study also highlighted the growing pains of integrating AI, particularly as teams pursue their own AI-centered projects.
Only 12 percent of IT leaders say AI ownership in their organization is “very clear and fully standardized,” while 37 percent describe it as somewhat or very unclear.
Where AI ownership is defined, responsibility most often falls to IT or technology teams (42 percent), though finance, legal/compliance, HR, and cybersecurity were also cited as key stakeholders.
Atera said this lack of clarity leads to fragmented oversight, with multiple teams pursuing separate initiatives without coordination or shared goals.
Execution was another major challenge, with 67 percent saying that managing cross-functional AI initiatives while maintaining core operations is moderately to extremely difficult.
“Many organizations have the vision for AI-driven transformation but lack the structure, resources, or simplicity needed to move from pilot projects to scalable deployment,” Atera said.
In August, Atera CEO Gil Pekelman shared his vision for AI automation for MSPs. Read more about how the RMM/PSA provider is utilizing agentic AI to reshape the future of IT.