Dear CIO,

This past week, I had the chance to present at the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, diving into a topic that's been on my mind recently. We got into the weeds on shadow AI, technical debt, and the security nightmares they’re starting to create. In this edition, I want to summarize some of the key takeaways from that talk and share what we all need to think about as these issues evolve.

Best Regards,
John, Your Enterprise AI Advisor

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Dear CIO: The Future Is Already Here

Unprecedented Opportunities and Threats with AI

As we step into the 2020s, it’s clear that the role of a CIO has never been more critical—or complex. The past few decades have seen technological revolutions that reshaped our approach to IT and business. From the automation of operations in the 1980s to the rise of infrastructure as code in the 2000s, each decade has brought transformative changes that required CIOs to adapt quickly. Now, we’re on the cusp of what I’m calling the "Agentic Infrastructure" era, where systems will increasingly become autonomous, learning, and evolving with minimal human intervention.

But with great power comes great responsibility. CIOs must harness the potential of these new technologies and navigate the risks they introduce. The rise of Generative AI, for instance, presents both unprecedented opportunities for innovation and significant threats, from new malware vectors to the dangers of deepfakes. The challenge is clear: embrace the change, but do so with eyes wide open.

Prepare for the Tsunami

It’s not just about adopting new tools—it's about transforming the very fabric of how we think about infrastructure, operations, and security. The stakes have never been higher, and the consequences of lagging can be catastrophic. Remember the cautionary tale of Air Canada, which failed to adapt quickly enough and paid the price.

To CAIO or Not to CAIO?

One of the organizations' most pressing decisions today is whether to appoint a Chief AI Officer (CAIO). This role could unify and drive AI strategies across the organization, ensuring that AI initiatives are cohesive and aligned with broader business goals. But it’s not without its pitfalls. Overemphasis on AI could lead to neglecting other critical areas, and the costs—both financial and organizational—can be steep. CIOs must carefully weigh the pros and cons, keeping in mind their organizations' unique needs and structure.

Final Thoughts

The future is coming at us faster than ever before, and it’s bringing with it a tsunami of change. As CIOs, it’s our job to keep our heads above water and to surf the waves of innovation, steering our organizations toward success in this brave new world.

So, dear CIO, are you ready? Because the future won’t wait.

• Steve Nouri writes about Microsoft's new AutoGen feature that allows AI agents to engage in multi-agent conversations, enabling them to make decisions through discussions.

• LlamaIndex showcased Richmond Alake's tutorial, which provides a beginner-friendly guide to building an agentic knowledge assistant over an existing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline using Claude 3.5 Sonnet, MongoDB, and LlamaIndex. 

• Erik J. Larson argues that Sakana AI, the University of Oxford, and the University of British Columbia’s introduction of “The AI Scientist," an LLM-based system designed to automate the entire scientific research process, may lack depth and contribute to the already overwhelming flood of mediocre research in scientific journals. 

• Pavan Belagatti discusses strategies to mitigate hallucinations in Large Language Models (LLMs) through prompt engineering, Agent plus Function Calling, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and fine-tuning. 

• Langchain writes how LangSmith allows users to generate synthetic data examples to improve test coverage and speed for evaluating LLM applications. 

• The First Annual ETLS GenAI Concept Hackathon was a huge success. Nearly 100 participants across 11 teams showcased innovative solutions and fresh perspectives on Generative AI in Enterprise. In this post, Joseph Enochs reflects on the event.