Artificial intelligence has moved from buzzword to boardroom, reshaping how C-suite leaders think about how their organizations approach customer experience. But as AI adoption accelerates, where does it fit in the organizational leadership chart, and who needs to own it?
Recent senior appointments at leading CX firms suggest the answer is to have an AI-focused voice on the board. Qualtrics, NICE, and Sprinklr are among the vendors that have created or elevated executive roles that put AI at the heart of customer experience strategy.
A New Kind of CX Leadership
Qualtrics recently announced two senior appointments aimed at deepening its AI expertise and accelerating its product innovation. Mark Hammond has joined as SVP, Core AI, bringing decades of experience across AI, machine learning and human-centered design. Meanwhile, Jeff Gelfuso has become the company’s first Chief Product Experience Officer, uniting product, research, and UX under one umbrella, to enable businesses to drive higher and faster returns on their investments in Qualtrics’ embedded AI capabilities.
As Brad Anderson, President of Product, Engineering, User Experience, and Security at Qualtrics said in announcing the appointments:
“Early AI innovations focused only on efficiency, but we’re moving beyond that to AI that fundamentally transforms how organizations interact with customers and employees.”
That shift changes what leadership looks like. AI fluency is becoming a competitive requirement for CX executives.
“Technology’s real value lies in how it enriches the human experience,” Hammond said in the announcement. “AI is fundamentally reshaping every experience someone has with a company.”
The appointments at Qualtrics come as adoption of its AI capabilities for experience management grows. The company said more than a third of its customers, including adidas, Stanford Health Care, Autodesk, Dollar Shave Club, and Stripe, have upgraded to Qualtrics AI innovations, including Qualtrics Conversational Feedback and Experience Agents. Among the company’s top 50 customers, 90 percent use at least one AI capability. Qualtrics has around 20,000 customers, including 91 of the Fortune 100 companies using its platform.
Qualtrics isn’t alone in redefining its leadership around AI. In September, NiCE appointed Jeff Comstock as President, CX Product & Technology, after nearly two decades at Microsoft, where his portfolio included the AI-powered copilots and agents within the Dynamics 365 Customer Experience business. Comstock’s remit is to accelerate NICE’s leadership in AI-driven CX, combining engineering depth with customer-experience design.
Similarly, Sprinklr announced in late October that Karthik Suri would join as Chief Product & Corporate Strategy Officer, a role focused on unifying AI and human experience across the company’s Unified-CXM platform. Suri’s appointment reflects how CX platforms are aligning corporate strategy directly with AI innovation.
The move towards bringing AI-focused leadership into the boardroom comes as CEOs have expressed concern that their technology experts are not “AI-savvy” enough.
A Gartner survey found that only 44 percent of CEOs deem their CIOs to have the knowledge and capabilities to get the business outcomes they’re targeting in the AI era.
David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow, said:
“AI is not just an incremental change from digital business. AI is a step change in how business and society work. A significant implication is that, if savviness across the C-suite is not rapidly improved, competitiveness will suffer, and corporate survival will be at stake.”
For tech buyers evaluating vendors, these appointments offer a clear signal. The most competitive CX providers are embedding AI into their leadership structures as well as their products.
When AI Strategy Becomes Product Strategy
Jeff Gelfuso’s new remit at Qualtrics points to a growing industry pattern—AI leadership that bridges product development, design and customer experience. “We are accelerating our commitment to embed AI capabilities across our platform to deliver intelligent experiences at speed while keeping people at the center,” he said.
That “human-centered AI” framing is becoming a shared philosophy in conversations around delivering customer experience. The common thread is that AI leadership is operational, customer-facing, and measurable.
The AI-focused appointments across Qualtrics, NICE, and Sprinklr point to leadership expertise becoming a differentiator. Across the board, the new executive roles combine AI fluency with product and design experience. Beyond building AI products, vendors are structuring their organizations around it.
For buyers assessing vendors, it’s worth asking whether the company’s AI leadership sits within engineering, product or experience, and whether those functions work together.
Enterprise teams may not necessarily need a “Chief AI Officer,” but integrating AI expertise across CX, data, and design functions can help build smarter structures.
