When the 2008 financial crisis reshaped global markets, companies elevated the Chief Financial Officer into a strategic powerhouse, transforming the role from number-cruncher to boardroom heavyweight.
A decade later, the digital revolution gave rise to Chief Digital Officers, reflecting corporate urgency to harness new technology. Now, according to futurist Michael Tchong, artificial intelligence is on track to trigger the next seismic shift: the arrival of the AI co-CEO — or even a stand-alone machine at the top.
Tchong, who has spent decades studying the interplay between technology and business, believes that the efficiency gains from AI are beginning to challenge the very foundations of executive work. He told Business Insider that decision-making, forecasting, and risk modeling — functions long reserved for human leaders — are increasingly being optimized by machines. With investors constantly demanding higher returns, he predicts that AI’s promotion into the corner office is only a matter of time.
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“It becomes inevitable,” he said.
Competitive pressure building
Tchong foresees a domino effect once early adopters embrace AI leadership. “If you don’t have an AI co-CEO,” he warned, “you’re going to be seen as being corporately deficient in the way you’re handling your affairs.”
The comment reflects an emerging tension. While AI conversations in the workplace often center on fears of mass layoffs, at the executive level, they increasingly focus on how leaders themselves will use the technology. For Tchong, that conversation is shifting from AI as a tool to AI as a peer.
Pressure to perform
Tchong predicts that AI bosses won’t just answer queries or draft reports — they will act as tireless executives, capable of sending emails at any hour and continuously fine-tuning operations. This outlook aligns with broader investor pressure for companies to showcase AI adoption.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently revealed that AI had enabled the company to cut around 4,000 customer-support roles, underlining the technology’s disruptive potential. Already, some executives delegate tasks like quarterly reporting to AI systems, while a handful of firms outside the US have formally named AI executives.
Leaders are also entertaining the idea openly. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has said AI could take over his job. Mechanize cofounder Tamay Besiroglu aspires to automate every role, including his own. Sam Liang, CEO of Otter, has predicted that avatars will soon represent executives in meetings.
Look out, CEOs
Investor influence could accelerate the shift, Tchong argues. If an AI co-CEO proves capable of boosting profitability, Wall Street may push others to follow suit.
“The inevitable conclusion that everyone will reach is that, ‘Hey, your co-CEO is already doing a fabulous job at optimizing your profits. Why can’t it also run the whole company?’” he said.
The economic logic is hard to ignore. “The AI CEO does not demand a $29 billion salary,” Tchong quipped — a clear nod to the massive executive pay packages that dominate headlines in Silicon Valley.
Not everyone’s convinced
Skeptics like Tom Gimbel, founder of staffing firm LaSalle Network and incoming chairman of the American Staffing Association, see limits to this vision.
“I think the CEO always remains a human,” he told Business Insider, emphasizing that leadership is fundamentally about judgment and decision-making, supported by advisors, attorneys, and boards.
For Gimbel, the real risk lies in lower- and mid-level jobs where AI can easily replicate tasks, not in leadership positions that require “100% decision-making.”
AI chief and “chief empathy officer”
Tchong imagines a hybrid model: humans taking on vision, crisis management, and emotional intelligence — effectively serving as “chief empathy officers” — while AI handles optimization and tedious tasks.
He acknowledges concerns about accountability, particularly if AI makes a mistake, but counters that human leaders also stumble. Bots, he said, simply have “bouts of fantasy.”
A lesson from history
What Tchong describes fits a broader historical arc: the steady elevation of specialized roles in response to economic and technological upheavals. Just as CFOs rose after the 2008 financial crisis and Chief Digital Officers emerged during the smartphone and cloud boom, AI leaders may soon become a fixture of the C-suite.
The difference, however, is scale. Whereas CFOs and CDOs were human specialists brought in to master new challenges, AI co-CEOs would represent a handover of authority to technology itself — a leap from augmentation to delegation of leadership.
If investors begin rewarding companies that embrace AI co-leadership, competitive pressure could force others to follow. That would create a new divide between “AI-led” firms and those maintaining traditional hierarchies.
For now, most AI deployments are operational, aimed at boosting efficiency and reducing headcount. But with executives increasingly using AI as a proxy in meetings and strategy discussions, the groundwork is being laid.
Should Tchong’s forecast materialize, the corporate corner office may soon look less like a seat of solitary human power and more like a shared command center — where one half is a human leader, and the other a machine running tirelessly in the background.