Who owns the mandate?

You could ask ten decision-makers who own AI data readiness and governance and the answers would scatter. In this survey, 32% point to the CIO or CTO, 20% to a Chief Data Officer, 19% to a combined Chief Data and AI Officer, 9% to a standalone Chief AI Officer, 6% to someone else and 13% say there’s no single executive owner at all.

That 13% works out to roughly one in eight organizations with no single executive owner for AI data readiness and governance. The survey does not establish whether those organizations are running agents in production.

Source: Collibra/Harris Poll survey, p.3 (Q1)

Size changes the picture, too. Decision-makers at organizations with $100 million or more in revenue are far more likely to have parked governance with the CIO or CTO (48%) than decision-makers at smaller organizations with under $100 million in revenue (21%), suggesting the mandate may be consolidating fastest where the risk is largest.

The reporting line is moving in the same direction. 53% of decision-makers say the reporting line for their AI function has moved closer to the primary data organization over the last twelve months, and another 23% say it was always unified with it. Enterprises are wiring AI and data governance together in practice, whether or not the org chart has caught up yet.

Source: Collibra/Harris Poll survey, p.4 (Q2)

48% of decision-makers at $100M+ enterprises say AI governance is parked with the CIO or CTO, versus 21% of organizations with under $100 million in revenue. The mandate consolidates where the stakes are highest first.