5 ways ambitious IT pros can future-proof their tech careers in an age of AI
Your career’s going well. You’ve delivered projects, gained respect, and been promoted to a mid-tier management position. However, it now feels like you’ve hit a glass ceiling.
While you’d love to assume a senior role and even become a CIO, you haven’t found opportunities to expand your remit in your current business or out in the market.
Worse still, some experts believe the increased use of AI will make it even harder to move into senior roles. So, what happens now?
ZDNET spoke with five business leaders who outlined five ways that ambitious IT professionals can ensure they have the capabilities to lead in the AI-enabled business of the future.
1. Stay close to technology
Orla Daly, CIO at technology specialist Skillsoft, advised future leaders to stay close to developments in the IT sector.
Daly told ZDNET that many CIOs in the not-so-distant past eschewed bits and bytes in favor of boardroom battles. Today, successful digital leaders focus on technology and business simultaneously.
“In the past, as you progressed in your career in IT, you were less involved in the technology, and your role became more about leadership and management,” she said. “And while those leadership and management pieces continue to be super-relevant and important, you will also need to stay closer to technology, maybe more than previously.”
Daly said one factor behind this shift in emphasis is the crucial role that digital and data, particularly AI, play in all modern businesses.
Successful IT chiefs are expected to be the expert resources for pioneering technology developments. In fact, Daly said the CIOs of the future will demonstrate how AI can fulfill some executive roles and responsibilities.
“Now, with AI, you have the tools that enable you to complete work more easily,” she said. “I can go in and create my own agent to do certain tasks, even though my IT engineering days are long behind me.”
2. Get hands-on with digital
Fausto Fleites, vice president of data intelligence at gardening specialist ScottsMiracle-Gro, said career-minded IT professionals must recognize the game-changing potential of AI: “If they don’t understand that, I don’t think they’re going to be successful.”
Fleites told ZDNET that, even though he’s now a VP, he remains extremely technically aware.
“I can understand the limitations of what technology can and cannot do,” he said. “I would say that professionals who don’t have my background in technology must begin to understand the power and limitations of AI.”
While promotion can sometimes mean IT professionals become detached from day-to-day technology challenges, Fleites takes a hands-on approach to digital and data, even designing his firm’s machine-learning models.
