Are CIOs becoming obsolete? One white paper, three trends, four questions

Last Updated on 6. July 2026

Three developments call for clarification

The question “Are CIOs becoming obsolete?” is not new. The Harvard Business Review first posed it back in 2000: Are CIOs obsolete? Today, the question resurfaces with greater urgency and a significantly more complex context.

Three trends are currently impacting CIOs simultaneously. Business and IT are increasingly converging; the IT roadmap is becoming a direct extension of the business roadmap; and the measure of success is the P&L, not ticket volume. SaaS and the cloud have dissolved traditional IT boundaries; business units are increasingly procuring independently; and the CIO is losing their role as gatekeeper. And AI is fundamentally changing how companies operate. Agent-based systems make decisions, learn, and interact autonomously with other systems. This shifts an organization’s entire operating model.

Those who view these three developments individually can still address them using familiar methods. Those who consider them together realize: This isn’t about making isolated adjustments to the existing role. It’s about a fundamental redefinition.

Three visionary scenarios, one decision

There is no single “right” answer for this redefinition. In our white paper “Are CIOs Becoming Obsolete?”, we outline three possible visionary scenarios for the CIO role:

1. The CIO as a co-architect of the business model, who inextricably links their roadmap to the business roadmap and shares P&L responsibility with senior management.
2. The CIO as an integrator with federated responsibility, who shares the stage with a Chief AI Officer or Chief Data Officer and holds platform logic together across departmental boundaries.
3. And the CIO as the operator of an industrialized IT environment, with a clear separation of change and operations, professionalized and cost-stable.

None of these target scenarios is wrong in and of itself. Which one is appropriate depends on the industry, the maturity of the business units, and the expectations of senior management. What is decisive is something else: The choice must be made consciously. Those who avoid dialogue about their own mandate rarely end up in the target scenario of their choice, but rather in a state where responsibility gets lost between old structures and new expectations.

Why this is now a leadership task

This is precisely the core of our observation from consulting practice: Clarifying one’s own role is itself a leadership task—and currently the most important one for many CIOs. Those who put it off won’t be eliminated. The role simply loses influence, step by step, until hardly anyone misses it anymore.

So the real question isn’t whether companies still need a CIO. It is: What should this person be able to do, be responsible for, and embody in an organization where IT has long been an integral part of the nervous system?

Download the white paper

In our white paper “Are CIOs Becoming Obsolete?”, we explore all three developments and target scenarios in detail, supplemented by four key questions to help you assess your own situation. Download the full white paper and contact us if you’d like to address these questions specifically for your organization.

How we support CIOs and IT decision-makers

At mgm consulting partners, we guide CIOs through this very process of self-assessment. In a structured workshop—on-site or remotely—we work with your leadership team to address the four key questions from the white paper:

1. How closely is your IT roadmap aligned with your business roadmap today?
2. Do you have a true overview of your SaaS and cloud landscape?
3. Who is responsible for the governance and cost-effectiveness of your AI initiatives?
4. And what mandate do you want to actively establish for your IT organization?

The result is an assessment report that clearly identifies which target state you’re closest to today and which one aligns with your strategy. Together, we’ll decide on the next steps and your support needs, which we’ll define flexibly and tailor to your specific requirements. After all, there isn’t one single path that fits everyone. But there is exactly the right path for your organization.

I’d be happy to serve as your point of contact for this.