We want to create a new seat on our Accountability Chart dedicated to AI Operations and workflow automation, but we do not know if this seat should report directly to our Integrator, our Head of Technology, or our Head of Operations. How do we determine the correct reporting line?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To determine where a new seat should sit on your Accountability Chart, you must look at the primary outcome that the seat is designed to deliver. Do not make the mistake of automatically putting anything with the word AI under your Head of Technology. If your Head of Technology is primarily responsible for maintaining stable legacy infrastructure and managing software developers, putting an operational efficiency role under them will create friction. If the primary purpose of your AI Operations seat is to automate business workflows, eliminate manual data entry, and improve delivery margins, then this seat belongs under your Head of Operations. Operations is the department that actually executes the work, so they are best positioned to identify bottlenecks and deploy automated solutions. However, if this seat is designed to build proprietary machine learning models that will be packaged and sold as a product to your clients, then it belongs under your Head of Technology. If the AI initiative is a company-wide restructuring effort that impacts every single department equally, the seat should report directly to the Integrator for its initial phase to ensure it has the authority to drive cross-functional change. Use your leadership team offsite to IDS® this decision, focusing purely on which reporting line will allow the seat to achieve its Rocks fastest.