It’s easy to think in terms of the sweeping changes technology is making to business and industry, from added automation to more personalized customer experiences to data-driven decision-making. But it’s also essential to narrow the focus and consider how the growing use of tech tools—and the ongoing evolution of those tools—has impacted and will impact individual roles within an organization.
CTOs are not immune to role-specific changes; indeed, they may soon be tasked with new responsibilities that have traditionally been the purview of their C-suite colleagues. Here, members of Forbes Technology Council detail ways the everyday work and focus of CTOs may soon be changing, as well as how these essential leaders can prepare.
1. Integrating Product Management
In the next five to 10 years, the CTO role will expand to integrate product management, aligning technology and business strategy under unified leadership. This evolution eliminates silos, accelerates time to market and ensures customer-focused, data-driven innovation. The CTO will drive accountability, foster collaboration and maximize ROI through aligned investments. – Gowtham Chilakapati, Humana
2. Fostering Innovation And Resilience
The CTO’s job isn’t just about tech anymore; it’s about managing cybersecurity, AI ethics and whether we’re in a metaverse meeting or just screen-stuck. Leadership matters; the “C” in CTO often gets overlooked. In the next five to 10 years, CTOs must drive tech while fostering innovation and resilience. Stay curious, keep learning and maybe consider a side hustle as a corporate therapist—you’ll need it! – Brando Murphy, DeepLink Protocol
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3. Leading Cross-Functional Collaboration
The CTO role will expand in the coming years to drive business outcomes, align tech with strategy and address cybersecurity and AI ethics. CTOs must lead cross-functional collaboration, foster innovation and ensure compliance. To prepare, CTOs should enhance their business acumen, stay ahead of trends, invest in leadership skills and focus on sustainability and agility. – Amy Gu, Dynamsoft
4. Aligning Technology With Business Goals
Digital transformation and AI’s disruptive potential will elevate the CTO’s role. CTOs will evolve from technical experts to strategic partners, aligning technology with business goals. They must hone their executive-level skills, including board-level communication, influence, negotiation and navigating complex relationships, to drive technology-driven initiatives and collaboration. – Bashir Agboola, Hospital for Special Surgery
5. Bridging The Past And Future
The CTO’s role is evolving, and CTOs need to have an eye on the past, present and future. Among their responsibilities will be handling technical debt, working as accelerators with existing teams and partners, building data products, and building an overall vision for technology in business. – Navdeep Singh Gill, XenonStack
6. Achieving Thorough AI Expertise
In the next five years, the role of CTO will see a greater emphasis on the inclusion of artificial intelligence in new technologies being developed. As businesses increasingly integrate AI into their development strategies, CTOs will need to be professionally skilled in all of the various aspects of AI as it advances as a human assistant (but not as a replacement for a human brain). – Alexander Oraevsky, TomoWave
7. Shaping Strategic Direction
As technology, fueled by the growth of AI, takes center stage in driving business growth, the CTO will become increasingly pivotal in shaping a company’s strategic direction. Historically, CTOs have focused on managing IT and supporting business operations. But, as business innovation and growth become increasingly driven by the integration of technology, the CTO will become a more strategic leadership position. – Nadia Bollinger, HP
8. Aligning With C-Suite Colleagues To Leverage Data
CTOs will have a greater voice in driving business strategy, which is increasingly data-driven. We will see stronger alliances between the CFOs, CTOs and CIOs around data-driven capital and operational efficiency. – Ariel Jalali, Paragon Technology Solutions
9. Ensuring The Safety Of Digital Assets
Ensuring the safety and availability of digital assets will require the CTO to lead collaboration among product teams, operations, IT and security to address complex technological and product-related challenges. The CTO will be pivotal in understanding and managing these critical needs, positioning them as the key figure in the C-suite for driving cybersecurity initiatives and strategies. – Ben Verghese, Illumio
10. Balancing Innovation With Security
The CTO’s role will shift from a technology leadership role to driving business strategy. In this era of AI, cloud computing and embedded finance, the CTO must balance the pace of innovation with security and compliance. Current and aspiring CTOs should deepen their expertise in AI-driven solutions, regulatory landscapes and scalable architecture while aligning technology with business growth. – Andrew Riabchuk, Akurateco
11. Seeking Competitive Advantage
In the next five to 10 years, the CTO role will shift from overseeing tech infrastructure to driving business innovation by leveraging AI, data and automation for competitive advantage. To prepare, CTOs should build strategic C-suite partnerships, deepen their expertise in emerging technologies and foster agility, continuous learning and upskilling to align technology with dynamic and evolving business objectives. – Sunil Dolwani, ZS ASSOCIATES INDIA PVT LTD
12. Applying Technology To Productivity And Value Creation
AI will reshape high-skilled roles, including software engineering, making CTOs pivotal in managing AI-driven workflows across areas like legal and finance. Acting as HR leaders for AI agents, they’ll focus on applying technology to productivity and value creation. With increasing digital threats, CTOs will play a critical role in safeguarding organizations. – Gabriel Labrada, Process Street
13. Meeting Decarbonization And Efficiency Targets
The CTO role will expand to orchestrate technology ecosystems that bridge AI-driven automation, advanced analytics and renewable integrations to meet decarbonization and efficiency targets. CTOs must master cloud-native architectures, lead cross-industry collaborations and ensure ethical AI deployment while aligning innovation with business outcomes and stringent ESG regulations. – Shankar Narayanan, Amazon Web Services
14. Balancing Faster Production With Good Governance
The CTO role will change dramatically over the next few years as technological strategies will need to consider the shrinking gap between business users and technology. Artificial intelligence will allow for much quicker production of business apps driven by plain language descriptions. Still, it can also lead to much less governance, posing a significant challenge for an organization’s CTO. – Jose Rodrigues, Link Consulting
15. Driving CX, Operations And Data Use Improvements
In the next five to 10 years, the CTO’s role will shift from managing product technology to leading overall innovation. They’ll focus on how new technologies can improve the customer experience, operations and data use. The CTO will need to collaborate across the business, solving real problems and driving growth. To prepare, CTOs should develop their leadership skills and stay open to emerging technologies. – Nikita Gupta, Symba
16. Managing Risk
Beyond driving innovation, chief technology officers will play a pivotal role in mitigating emerging threats as technology becomes more central to enterprise risk management. This evolution will demand a broader focus, with CTOs acting as technologists and strategic risk advisors. Building resilience into tech strategies will become a key CTO differentiator. – Rochelle Blease, G2 Risk Solutions
17. Building Technology Ecosystems
CTOs are going to be required not only to be technical experts in their organizations, but also to serve as ecosystem leaders, collaborating across industries and forging partnerships. They will need to be skilled in various disciplines, including AI, infrastructure, security and more. To prepare, CTOs should develop their strategic thinking skills, build cross-functional expertise, invest in leadership and build ecosystem relationships. – Rahul Arulkumaran, Yuma
18. Focusing On The Financials Of Tech Investments
The role of the CTO is expected to evolve to become more of a business enabler who aligns technology, data and AI initiatives with business goals. CTOs will need to focus on justifying the ROI of the investments that were made in the years since Covid. And now, with AI being part of everyone’s strategies, they will need to focus on keeping costs down and improving speed to market. – Motasem El Bawab, N3XT Sports
19. Aligning Innovation With Social Values
The role of the CTO will evolve to balance delivering transformative technology with ensuring ethical AI practices, moving beyond profit-driven innovation to focus on long-term societal impact. As AI and emerging technologies increasingly shape daily life, CTOs will lead efforts to align innovation with values like fairness, privacy and inclusivity, all while meeting business objectives. – Karthik Subramanian, Mozilla Corporation
20. Embracing Crypto-Agility
One topic that is flying under the radar is the threat that quantum computing poses to today’s cryptography. This has led government bodies to release new cryptographic algorithms and to mandate moving away from RSA and ECC, which underpin everything digitally. CTOs of the future must ensure that their organizations adopt systems that support crypto-agility; the days of static algorithms are over. – Ted Shorter, Keyfactor