C-Suite alignment is ‘most important piece’ of AI puzzle

When a bank’s board demands updates on the escalating AI race between financial institutions, the CEO promises more aggressive tech initiatives to placate their concerns. At the same time, the CTO is worried that the bank lacks the necessary infrastructure and institutional knowledge for successful AI deployment. And then there’s the CFO, who is struggling to justify the skyrocketing costs associated with the tech, let alone a return on investment, and the COO, who is scrambling to identify efficiency metrics while redesigning workflows. “Every player in these different roles has a completely different set of stresses on them,” Andrew Moore , founder and CEO of tech startup Lovelace and former head of Google Cloud AI , told FinAi News . “And at the moment, I think that some of the grand pronouncements being made by the big AI celebrities are absolutely damaging the same conversations there.” For example, chief innovation and technology officers are installing AI tools that chief operating officers say people don’t know how to use, according to a July report by professional services firm Grant Thornton , which surveyed 950 executives across 10 industries, including banking. And to make matters worse, chief financial officers are funding AI projects despite this disconnect, the report said. Highlighting this problem: 44% of CIOs and CTOs say AI is accelerating innovation, compared with 22% of CFOs and 20% of COOs. [caption id="attachment_57388988" align="aligncenter" width="600"] (ChatGPT/AI-generated)[/caption] For AI to be effective in financial services, alignment in the C-suite is perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle, Sahil Sagar , chief information and AI officer at commercial real estate lender Greystone , told FinAi News . “Most of your systems are a reflection of your organizational structure and the leadership,” he said. Same company, different problem Executives often have differing priorities regarding AI-related goals and what successful deployment looks like. One of the biggest obstacles to C-Suite alignment on AI is “making sure everyone is solving the same problem,” Darius Wise , president and chief executive of Highlands Ranch, Colo.-based Red Rocks Credit Union , told FinAi News “Different teams naturally come to a technology initiative with different priorities, whether that is the member experience, operations, implementation or risk,” he said. The disconnect between executives and team leads usually trickles down from the top, Lovelace's Moore said. First, the CEO of a financial institution is “being evaluated by their board and the media in a world where there's so much discussion of AI changing every industry,” he said. “The CEO just needs to show that they're taking AI seriously,” Moore said. “Without necessarily having that direct link back to the specific things in their organization that can be automated to either improve their product or reduce their risk, they ask the rest of the organization pretty aggressively to be an AI-first company.” That puts pressure on the CTO, who is next in command, to execute those initiatives pushed by the CEO, he said. “Now that CTO or CIO is often really stressed out because they've got to show that they're doing a lot of activity related to AI,” Moore said. “They also know that their head is on the line for actually getting positive results that are measurable.” Moore said he has seen several Fortune 500 companies “completely lose a year of technology development because of the organizational confusion that happens.” Clear objectives When defining AI objectives, CEOs must “create clarity around the need first,” Red Rocks Credit Union’s Wise said. “What problem are we trying to solve? What should be better for the member or employee when we are done? Once that is clear, teams have a common purpose to work toward,” he said. Jay Budzik , senior vice president and director of AI/ML development at Fifth Third Bank, agreed. Banking executives responsible for AI innovation need to build a clear business case while considering each department’s goals so everyone is on the same page, he said. “It helps to find something that's narrow enough to measure and actually works so that it's trackable and you can get it done within a reasonable amount of time without a huge capital outlay, but also big enough to justify whatever you're asking for,” he said. [caption id="attachment_57371258" align="aligncenter" width="800"] (Courtesy/Fifth Third Bank)[/caption] For example, Fifth Third was evaluating an AI tool for extracting and structuring information from documents, Budzik said. Although the tool could have been useful for 40 teams at the bank, Budzik decided it would be best to start with 10, resulting in a projected eight- or nine-figure cost reduction. “When we went for funding the first time, it was just one of those [teams], and ... the benefit just didn't look that great,” he said. “But reframing it as sort of a repeatable thing so that we were able to address more of the cases … allowed us to sort of level up the benefit side to then justify the expense.” Ultimately, bank executives must articulate the significance of a use case so each executive will understand, Budzik said, stressing that: Finance teams care most about cash flow, profit and hard cost savings; Operations teams care most about efficiency, throughput and overall efficacy; and Technology teams value reusable AI functions, relatively consistent processes and minimal expenses tied to maintaining and operating systems. Top-down approach CEOs who have rewired their C-Suites to have an AI-first mindset have scaled 10% more AI initiatives than those who haven’t, according to a May report by IBM. While delegating is a crucial part of the CEO role, those top executives also must lead by example and demonstrate some AI knowledge for successful deployment, Grasshopper Bank CTO Peter Chapman told FinAi News . “I have seen at plenty of other companies, there's a top-down AI mandate from an executive or an executive team who doesn't use AI themselves, doesn't understand it and simply sees it as a cost save,” he said. “That is incredibly challenging.” Grasshopper CEO Mike Butler uses AI regularly and is involved in technical conversations, “setting the tone and culture” for the $1.6 billion digital bank , Chapman said. Marty Miracle , chief digital and risk officer at Thread Bank , similarly told FinAi News that AI “has to be driven from the top.” “If you don't have the CEO totally on board and pushing it down, then it's less likely to be successful." — Marty Miracle, chief digital officer, Thread Bank Before implementing AI, Miracle and Thread Bank CEO Chris Black used Anthropic and OpenAI models extensively to learn about the technology and define what success meant for each department, he said. Those actions created a trickle-down effect, with every team lead and employee having a clear AI-related goal that “aligns with the larger objective,” Miracle said. Pressure to deliver Roughly 80% of 900 CEOs across industries said their job is at risk if their AI initiatives fail in 2026, according to a May report by data and AI company Dataiku . Although bank CEOs might feel pressure to run rampant with AI, discipline is crucial, David Normandin , president and CEO of Wintrust Specialty Finance , a subsidiary of the $75 billion Wintrust Financial , told FinAi News . “There's so many initiatives that you can go after and so many rabbit holes you can find yourself jumping from,” he said. In the end, a CEO should remain focused on finding new, creative ways to solve problems. And if AI happens to address those problems — no matter how big or small — the rest of the team is more likely to buy in, Normandin said. “Sometimes in leadership, you’re celebrating wins that may not seem like big deals to you, but they are to your people,” he said. FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas, will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with U.S. Bank Senior Vice President – Lending Operations Group Manager Suzanne Rathbun . To learn more about the 2026 event and register, visit here .

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C-Suite alignment is ‘most important piece’ of AI puzzle

80% of CEOs say their jobs are at risk if AI initiatives fail in 2026

Okta launches AI agent management capabilities

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