The CHRO’s value is clear.

What if the missing piece in your AI transformation isn’t technology at all?

Here’s what we discovered: Organizations struggling with AI adoption and those achieving breakthrough results are doing one thing dramatically differently — and it’s not what you’d expect.

After surveying 700 organizations across three continents, we’ve identified a game-changing insight. While 78% of organizations in early AI stages see the CHRO playing a minor role, 90% of organizations with the most advanced initiatives — what we classify as AI leaders — have discovered that a powerful CHRO-CIO partnership is the secret to transformation success.

This gap in perspective isn’t just notable. It’s the difference between stalled pilots and enterprise-wide impact.

Here’s why this matters: AI transformation isn’t primarily a technology challenge. It’s about skills, change management, and about breaking down silos. These are precisely the challenges where CHROs can be most transformative, yet most organizations are leaving this strategic advantage untapped.

The performance gap is staggering. AI leaders are seeing higher staff productivity (88%), higher profitability (84%) and higher staff retention and loyalty (84%) compared to those in the beginning stages of the journey.

The best part? There’s a clear playbook. Whether your organization is taking its first steps or actively advancing, this research reveals exactly how elevating the CHRO-CIO partnership can accelerate your progress and unlock results you may have thought were years away.

The path to AI leadership is clearer than you think.

—Amber Grewal, Chief Growth Officer Eightfold AI

The AI revolution has begun

Most firms are in the middle of the AI journey.

Midsize and large businesses are on the road to AI transformation, yet most are caught in the “messy middle” — the zone between experimentation and full integration. While some organizations are still making AI plans and others are advancing at pace, the majority remain in this interim phase where transformations often fail.

Stuck in the middle

Across all seven foundational areas, most organizations remain at the starting and midway stages. Only a handful have achieved advanced maturity, indicating that most organizations successfully initiate AI efforts but cannot scale beyond intermediate phases. Our research shows that many of these organizations will struggle to move the needle over the next two years, with many bogged down in the middle of implementation.

The leadership gap

In many cases, the leadership team may be holding AI progress back. Two-thirds of organizations are only starting or midway in building leadership alignment, and another 17% have not made any headway. Without the right leadership — including the CHRO and other key members of the C-Suite — AI transformation will be difficult if not impossible.

Breaking through the human barriers.

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https://eightfold.ai/wp-admin/post.php?post=20862&action=edit

Closing the talent gap with AI.

The challenge

Eaton keeps the world running with safe, sustainable power solutions, but to do that, the company needs the right people. Finding and hiring more than 15,000 employees each year was growing increasingly challenging due to its complex talent acquisition technology stack and fragmented recruiting processes.

The solution

With AI, Eaton was able to give recruiters intelligent and automated tools to scale their efforts, create a smoother candidate experience, and provide visibility into the opportunities employees craved. These efforts led to a nine-day decrease in time to offer, $2.4 million in cost savings, and a 300% increase in the size of the company’s talent network, helping secure the right talent in a highly competitive marketplace.

• 4x increase in talent networks
• 30% – 40% increase in candidate velocity
• Double-digit increases in all recruiting metrics: time to market, time to present, time to offer.

“Our talent network has grown from about a million to 4 million today. We’ve seen double-digit increases in candidate velocity. We’ve seen improvements in all talent acquisition metrics: time to market, time to present, and time to offer. Candidate satisfaction scores have gone up and customer satisfaction scores have as well.” — Jackie Morgan, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition, Eaton