AI isn’t just the latest trend in technology anymore. It’s about to reshape business leadership as you know it. The rise of the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) role has become central to this transformation. These AI leaders are not only technologists but strategic visionaries who align AI initiatives with business goals, ensure ethical implementation, and drive measurable impact.
Their efforts span industries from software and finance to manufacturing and consumer services, helping organizations through a time where AI is foundational in actual growth. This curated list spotlights the top 7 Chief AI Officers running Fortune 500 companies in 2025.
Each is shaping enterprise AI with tangible outcomes, launching new AI platforms, embedding agentic systems, and scaling AI adoption to drive innovation and efficiency.
1. Lan Guan, Chief AI Officer, Accenture
Lan Guan heads AI-driven transformation at Accenture, a global consulting and professional services giant. Her role encompasses overseeing enterprise-wide AI strategies, deploying responsible AI frameworks, and facilitating AI integration across Accenture’s diverse portfolio of services.
She leads Accenture’s Center for Advanced AI, a $3 billion investment hub that drives enterprise AI solutions globally. Her expertise bridges complex AI research with practical business transformation, enabling Fortune 500 clients to harness AI for revenue growth, enhanced customer experience, and operational excellence.
Accenture also leverages gen AI to accelerate software development, having deployed GitHub Copilot among 12,000 developers, resulting in substantial productivity gains, faster code delivery, and improved developer satisfaction with a 96% adoption rate.
2. Philipp Herzig, Chief AI Officer, SAP
Philipp Herzig leads AI initiatives at SAP, one of the world’s largest software companies. His role focuses on embedding AI capabilities into SAP’s cloud and ERP systems, enabling businesses to harness AI for improved operational efficiency and intelligent decision-making.
SAP’s Business Technology Platform supports AI-powered real-time business insights and automation for thousands of companies worldwide. Under Herzig’s leadership, SAP has set an ambitious 2025 target to deliver 400 embedded AI use cases covering diverse business processes such as procurement, supply chain, finance, and customer service.
This includes the expansion of the SAP Joule AI assistant, which now supports 11 languages and integrates deeply with SAP’s S/4HANA Cloud platform to provide context-aware AI agents that help automate complex tasks like supplier verification and service ticket classification.
3. Prasanna Gopalakrishnan, Chief Product & AI Officer, ADP
Prasanna Gopalakrishnan serves as Chief Product & AI Officer at ADP, where she drives the fusion of artificial intelligence with human capital management solutions. Under her leadership, ADP has enhanced workforce analytics through its flagship platform ADP DataCloud, which provides clients with actionable insights from a proprietary dataset comprising millions of employees and thousands of job titles.
This platform enables businesses to understand turnover trends, labor cost dynamics, and productivity metrics, empowering HR teams to make data-driven talent management decisions. One innovative tool, ADP Assist, leverages generative AI to proactively detect payroll anomalies, guide compliance across 140+ countries, and streamline benefits administration.
The company also supports compensation management workflows with data-driven insights that assist clients in maintaining pay equity and compliance with evolving regulations.
4. John Roese, Chief AI Officer & CTO, Dell Technologies
John Roese serves as Chief AI Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Dell Technologies, steering the company’s AI infrastructure and innovation initiatives. His role focuses on developing AI-ready cloud and edge computing platforms that enable enterprises to deploy AI workloads efficiently and at scale.
Under John’s leadership has driven the launch of Dell’s AI-optimized PowerEdge servers and PowerStore storage systems, which incorporate specialized accelerators and high-throughput networking designed to reduce AI model training times and boost inference speeds. These products have been adopted by over 150 global enterprises, helping them accelerate AI projects from research to production.
In 2024, Dell announced a $5 billion investment plan over three years aimed at expanding its AI hardware portfolio and strengthening partnerships with hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google to enhance joint AI offerings.
5. Ali Alkhafaji, Chief AI & Technology Officer, Omnicom Group
Ali Alkhafaji serves as Chief AI and Technology Officer at Omnicom Group, where he heads the integration of artificial intelligence to enhance marketing effectiveness and customer engagement. Ali’s leadership focuses on leveraging AI-driven analytics and machine learning to optimize media buying, personalize consumer targeting, and improve campaign ROI.
Management commentary from Omnicom’s 2025 earnings reports highlights AI as a key contributor to improved campaign productivity and client ROI, with the company investing heavily in agentic AI capabilities to drive next-phase growth. Furthermore, Ali has been active in developing responsible AI frameworks, ensuring the ethical deployment of AI in marketing, addressing privacy concerns, and complying with rapidly evolving regulations.
6. Barak Turovsky, Chief AI Officer, General Motors
Barak Turovsky leads AI strategy at General Motors, focusing on autonomous driving, manufacturing intelligence, and connected vehicle technologies. Under Barak’s leadership, GM’s AI programs focus heavily on improving autonomous vehicle technologies. GM’s fleet of autonomous test vehicles generates millions of miles of driving data monthly, which is used to train and refine AI models responsible for enhancing safety and reliability of self-driving capabilities.
In manufacturing, Barak’s teams utilize AI-powered predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization tools, leading to reduced downtime and cost savings in assembly plants. AI-driven quality control systems also help identify defects earlier in production, improving overall product reliability.
7. Bhavesh Dayalji, Chief AI Officer, S&P Global
Bhavesh Dayalji serves as Chief AI Officer at S&P Global and is also the CEO of Kensho Technologies, a leading AI startup acquired by S&P Global. Under Bhavesh’s leadership, Kensho has pioneered the use of AI in financial analytics, dramatically enhancing the speed, accuracy, and depth of data-driven investing and risk management.
His work focuses on deploying advanced machine learning models to analyze vast amounts of market and alternative data, providing predictive insights that help institutional investors identify risks and opportunities more effectively. Kensho’s AI platforms support real-time market event detection, scenario simulation, and causal analysis, enabling financial professionals to make better-informed decisions.
