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AI & Data Leadership Report 2025–2026
What is helping AI and data leaders make progress, and what is getting in the way?
Lucent’s AI & Data Leadership Report is based on research with more than 100 AI and data leaders.
It examines the organisational conditions around their work: leadership and ownership, governance, collaboration, talent, investment and the challenge of demonstrating value.
01
LEADERSHIP
Where AI and data leadership sits in the organisation.
02
OWNERSHIP
How ownership and accountability are structured.
03
COLLABORATION
What makes cross-functional collaboration easier or harder.
04
GOVERNANCE
The governance and regulatory issues leaders are navigating.
05
TALENT
Talent, retention and leadership capability.
06
INVESTMENT & VALUE
Budgets, investment and the pressure to demonstrate value.
01
LEADERSHIP
Where AI and data leadership sits in the organisation.
02
OWNERSHIP
How ownership and accountability are structured.
03
COLLABORATION
What makes cross-functional collaboration easier or harder.
04
GOVERNANCE
The governance and regulatory issues leaders are navigating.
05
TALENT
Talent, retention and leadership capability.
06
INVESTMENT & VALUE
Budgets, investment and the pressure to demonstrate value.
THE RESEARCH
What the research examines
As AI moves from experimentation to scale, investment becomes harder to justify without a credible connection between adoption, operational improvement and business value.
of AI leaders plan to move roles in the next year.
Leadership continuity is part of execution risk. Progress is linked to leadership clarity, structure and sponsorship.
63%
of AI leaders struggle to move pilots into production.
Pilots proliferate without clear ownership, decision rights and an operating model capable of moving work into production.
91%
of AI leaders struggle to secure sufficient budgets.
Budget clarity improves when accountability is connected to business outcomes and the leaders who own them.
71%
KEY FINDINGS
AI ambition is not the constraint. Execution is.
Persistent problems around ownership, authority, sponsorship or cross-functional decision-making can become leadership and operating-model issues. Before creating a new role, the organisation needs to understand which decisions are unclear, where accountability sits today and whether the existing leadership has the authority to resolve them.
The findings point to pressures around leadership continuity, ownership, authority, collaboration, investment and the ability to move from experimentation into operating use.
WHEN EXECUTION BECOMES A LEADERSHIP QUESTION
When organisational conditions are holding execution back.
START A CONVERSATION
Working through an AI or data leadership decision?
Speak to Rebecca if you are deciding where AI or data responsibility should sit, whether the existing leadership is sufficient or what a new executive would need to own.