IBM Study: 76% of Organizations Now Have a Chief AI Officer, Up from 26% a Year Ago

IBM's Institute for Business Value surveyed 2,000 global CEOs and found that 76% of organizations now have a Chief AI Officer, a 50-percentage-point jump from 26% in 2025. Organizations with an AI-first C-suite scaled 10% more AI initiatives than peers and saw 5% higher AI ROI. Yet a stark adoption gap persists: only 25% of workers use AI regularly despite 86% of CEOs believing employees have the skills. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna opened Think 2026 in Boston (May 4–7, 5,000+ attendees from 80+ countries) with his most comprehensive enterprise AI announcements, covering agentic AI, quantum computing, and deployments at Aramco, Cleveland Clinic, and Elevance Health.