Nearly Half of Business Leaders Doubt Their Teams Have the Right AI Skills – Is Your CIO Ready?
- rebecca16083
- Oct 9
- 7 min read
Globally, nearly half of business leaders doubt their leadership teams have the AI skills needed. This stark finding, from a May 2025 Adecco Group report, highlights a major AI skills gap at the top of organisations. If you’re a CEO or CIO, it begs the question: is your leadership team truly AI-ready, or are you flying blind into the AI era?
In our own AI Leadership Survey 2025, we uncovered similar concerns inside organisations. Despite all the AI hiring and training buzz, AI and data leaders themselves struggle to build teams with the right capabilities, and many doubt their current team’s readiness. In fact, securing top AI talent emerged as the number one challenge in our research, with an overwhelming 91% of AI leaders finding it difficult to hire the people they need. The gap is real – and it’s not just a frontline problem, it’s a leadership problem.
The AI Skills Gap at the Top
It’s easy to assume that as long as you have a few star data scientists, you’re covered. But today’s AI initiatives demand cross-functional leadership skills as much as technical chops. This lack of confidence in leadership’s AI readiness is a red flag for any company looking to compete on AI. After all, if the top team isn’t fluent in AI, or doesn’t have the right experts at the table, how will AI strategy translate into execution?
Lucent Search's AI Leadership Survey data reinforces this concern from the inside: 55% of AI leaders say hiring top AI/data talent is “very challenging,” and ~37% call it “moderately challenging,” totalling ~91% who struggle with talent acquisition. In other words, virtually every AI leader is struggling to find people with the right mix of skills. AI is not just about data and coding ability; it’s the ability to apply AI to business problems. The result is a talent bottleneck that leaves many teams under-skilled and under-prepared.
This skills gap extends to retaining and upskilling existing team members as well. Once you do manage to hire good people, keeping them is no cakewalk. Roughly 87% of AI leaders say retaining top talent is at least moderately challenging. And, nearly half of AI leaders expect hiring to get even harder in the coming year, not easier. In short, the pipeline of AI-skilled talent isn’t improving fast enough to meet demand. This leaves many CIOs and tech leaders in a tricky spot: ambitious AI roadmaps, but teams that may not have the right skills to execute.
Finding the right AI people is a universal pain point. For CEOs, that means your Chief Data Officer (CDO) or Chief AI Officer (CAIO) is likely spending a huge chunk of time just trying to get the right team in place.
Why AI Readiness Starts with Leadership
Why does this skills gap at the leadership level matter so much? Because execution in AI starts with the people at the top. If your CIO, CDO, or other executives aren’t confident in their teams’ AI skills, it will breed caution, or worse, inaction. Projects get stuck in “pilot purgatory”, or critical AI initiatives never leave the whiteboard because leaders aren’t sure their people can deliver.
Lack of AI-ready leadership also means missed opportunities. AI moves fast, from advances in generative AI to new data tools, and companies need leaders who can spot which innovations will drive value. Our survey found that many AI leaders are eager to implement game-changing tech like generative AI agents, but they need organisational support and talent to do so. When leadership teams lack confidence in AI, they may treat AI projects as low-priority experiments rather than strategic bets. Competitors, meanwhile, will be embedding AI into products, finance, HR, everywhere.
Moreover, insufficient leadership buy-in and understanding creates a risk of losing your AI leaders themselves. These executives are in high demand, and our research showed 63% of AI/data leaders plan to change jobs within the next year. Why? Often because they feel they can’t make an impact where they are. They crave a company that fully embraces AI, with clear executive sponsorship and the right resources. If they don’t get that, they’ll leave for one that does. In other words, if you don’t empower your AI leadership, someone else will.
Is Your CIO Ready? How to Build an AI-Ready Leadership Team.
The onus is on CEOs and CIOs to bridge this skills gap at the top. Here’s how you can ensure your leadership team – and by extension your organisation – is AI-ready:
Assess and Upskill Your Top Team
Frankly evaluate the AI knowledge in your C-suite and direct reports. Do they understand the basics of machine learning, data strategy, and AI ethics? If not, invest in executive education. Many forward-looking companies are having their leaders undergo AI bootcamps or one-on-one coaching. Remember, organisational fluency, not just technical mastery, is the differentiator in scaling AI. Your business executives don’t need to code Python, but they need to speak AI enough to set strategy and recognise opportunities.
Hire for Hybrid Skills
When filling leadership roles related to data and tech, prioritise hybrid skill sets. That means people who get both tech and business. In recruiting AI leadership, we at Lucent Search always look for strategic thinkers who can translate between the C-suite and the data science lab. The strongest performers “aren’t just skilled coders – they’re operators who can translate ambition into execution within complex organisations”. Consider candidates from diverse backgrounds – e.g., a product leader who learned AI, or a technologist with an MBA. These hybrids can bridge the gap between what the business needs and what the tech can do.
Leverage External Partners
Given how tough the talent market is, don’t go it alone. Tap into contractors, consultants, or specialised recruiters to fill immediate skill gaps. If your team lacks an AI architect or an MLOps engineer and you can’t hire quickly, bring in a contractor while you search. Retained search firms (like Lucent Search) can help identify and attract those unicorn leaders with both AI vision and execution know-how. The key is to ring-fence resources for AI talent and treat these hires with the same urgency as any C-level hire, because their impact is comparable.
Invest in Your Existing Talent
Often, the talent is already in your organisation. Provide budgets for training and upskilling your promising internal talent. For instance, you might upskill a keen software engineer into a machine learning engineer or sponsor a data scientist to develop better business consulting skills. Our survey respondents stressed the need for support in talent development: they want help from HR to build attractive career paths and continuous learning for their teams. Not only does this improve your team’s skills, it also boosts retention as people stay where they see growth.
Set Realistic Expectations from the Top
One reason AI leaders burn out is unrealistic timelines from boards (“Why haven’t we delivered X yet?”). CEOs and CIOs must educate the board that building a high-performing AI capability takes time and sustained investment. When leadership understands that, they can back the AI team with patience and resources, rather than doubt and pressure. Show that you recognise the challenge – if 91% of AI leaders struggle to hire, your AI initiatives won’t go from 0 to 100 overnight. This empathy from the top creates a supportive environment where AI talent can thrive.
“The honest answer is we’ve been trying to hire the people we need”
Talent as the Top Barrier
In our survey’s challenge ranking, talent issues came out on top. One respondent quipped that when the board asks why a project isn’t done, “the honest answer is we’ve been trying to hire the people we need”. This sentiment sums it up: the success of your AI strategy hinges on your ability to attract, develop, and retain the right people. It’s a leadership priority, not just an HR task.
Leadership Implications: Don’t Wait for a Crisis
The gap in AI skills at the leadership level is not a hypothetical future worry; it’s impacting businesses right now. If half of executives think their leadership team lacks AI savvy, those companies are likely missing out on AI-driven efficiencies and innovations today. Competitors with AI-ready leaders will pull ahead, whether in automating operations, personalising customer experiences, or launching new AI-enabled products.
For the CIO, this is a call to arms. You need to act now to bolster your bench. Start by identifying where the knowledge gaps are. Perhaps your CIO is solid, but your business unit heads don’t “get” data science, or vice versa. Then either close those gaps with training or bring in new blood. Make AI leadership part of your succession planning. Who will champion AI on your executive team? Also, ensure your AI leader has a seat at the table. Too many organisations keep the Head of AI buried three layers down; instead, elevate that role to report to the CEO or CIO directly, so it has clout and context.
Finally, recognise that leadership support is the linchpin. As our report emphasises, execution excellence in AI starts with people, structure, and leadership clarity. AI success isn’t just about picking the right algorithm. It’s about having the right leadership in place to drive cultural change, to secure budget, and to steer AI ethically and strategically.
Close the Gap with the Right Talent
The message is clear: AI readiness is a leadership issue. If you’re reading this as a CEO, CIO, CTO, or CPO, ask yourself – do we have the right people leading our AI charge? Are our teams equipped, or are we leaving our CIO and CDO to fight fires due to skill gaps? The companies that will thrive in 2025 and beyond are those taking decisive action to build AI-ready leadership teams now.
At Lucent Search, this is what we do. We partner with organisations to find and develop the AI and data leaders who can translate ambition into reality. Whether you need a visionary Chief AI Officer who can set strategy and build a team, or a hands-on Head of Data Science who can mentor others, we can help you identify that talent. As a specialised executive search firm in AI, we’ve spent years tracking the talent market and know what “great” looks like. We can connect you with leaders who not only have technical brilliance, but also the soft skills to drive change across the enterprise.
Don’t let an AI skills gap at the top become your Achilles’ heel. Equip your leadership, invest in talent, and make AI a team sport from the C-suite down. In an environment where nearly half of leaders worry they lack the right AI skills, doubling down on talent is your competitive advantage. The companies that act now to close the gap will be the ones setting the pace in the AI-powered economy. Is your CIO ready? With the right support and team, they will be. And if you need help finding that team, you know where to find us.
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