Do traditional banks need a Chief AI Officer?: An explorative research project that aims to evaluate the appointment of a Chief AI Officer to overcome challenges that arise when traditional banks adopt AI technologies

Artificial intelligence is a technology trend that potentially far exceeds the possibilities of all current state technologies, in a sense that these technologies have self-learning abilities. Organizations that manage to adopt and diffuse these technologies may effectively reach a competitive edge over their competitors faster. However, for large organizations such as traditional banks the question arises how to facilitate this transformation to effectively adopt AI technologies. Despite the fact that AI technologies are still in a relatively premature stage of development, traditional banks in the Netherlands are currently exploring its potential. In this exploratory study we interviewed 19 experts in the field of AI and Banking to identify all relevant challenges that arise when traditional banks adopt AI technologies. Additionally, we explored the importance of top management tech-executive roles as a possible solution to address certain challenges. As a result we have found that traditional banks have no common view or approach on how to adopt AI technologies enterprise-wide effectively. Therefore, the appointment of a new Chief AI Officer role may prove to be a valuable solution to address some of these challenges. However, there is still a mixed view on what this roles’ position, responsibilities and other managerial characteristics should be.Management of Technology (MoT