Experts at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that in the era of artificial intelligence (AI; Artificial Intelligence), for corporations to succeed, investment accountability should be distributed across the organization rather than concentrated in a single chief executive officer (CEO). It means a division of roles in which the CEO takes ultimate responsibility for setting the vision and delivering results, the management team specifically executes and implements it, and the board oversees and verifies the process. They also advised shortening the AI decision-making cycle and making the CEO's accountability clearer.
Below is a Q&A with BCG managing director and senior partner Alpesh Shah and Jeff Walters.
─ If CEOs and boards largely agree on the importance of AI, why do you think such a big gap emerges at the execution stage?
"CEOs and boards agree on the importance of AI, but they have different expectations about the value AI can actually create and the speed of execution. Some CEOs believe boards overestimate AI's potential or do not fully understand its impact on growth strategies. Boards, in turn, often feel that corporations are not moving fast enough on AI transformation.
These perception and expectation gaps can create unrealistic expectations of what AI can actually deliver, widen the execution gap, and lead to tension between rapid AI adoption and appropriate oversight. To address this, CEOs and boards need to discuss AI in the same language."
─ From what perspective should CEOs manage AI return on investment (ROI; Return on Investment), and how should boards evaluate it?
"CEOs should embed AI within corporate strategy. Rather than pushing hundreds of pilot projects, it is important to focus on core functions with high value-creation impact. BCG classifies ways to maximize AI value as 'deploy' to boost productivity, 'reshape' to change workflows, and 'invent' to create new products and business models.
Boards should also evaluate AI using the same criteria as capital investments. It is not simply whether AI was adopted, but whether AI actually reduced unnecessary work, simplified organizational layers, improved the customer journey, and contributed to expanding market share."
─ How are the standards for a "good board" changing in the AI era?
"AI literacy is now a baseline requirement for board members. A good board goes beyond merely overseeing risks and financial performance to act as a thought partner that validates the CEO's key AI-related decisions and weighs the pros and cons of important choices together. And as AI penetrates operations more deeply and regulation tightens, the board's role in managing AI-related risks—such as cybersecurity, data governance, and regulatory response—becomes more important."
─ As AI shifts from a tech project to a business transformation agenda, the CEO's role is changing. What leadership capability matters most for CEOs in the AI era?
"CEOs must be able to show how they will create value with AI. They should focus less on simple adoption and more on reshaping work and business, and creating new AI-based products and business models. Given the high uncertainty around AI, CEOs must manage long-term judgment and short-term results simultaneously."
─ How should the division of roles among the CEO, the board, and management be designed in the AI era?
"For AI to succeed, accountability should be distributed across the organization rather than concentrated in a single CEO. A structure is desirable in which the CEO is accountable for vision and results, management is responsible for execution and deployment, and the board performs oversight and verification.
The key point is that the CEO does not necessarily need to be a technical expert. It is also possible to adopt a co-CEO system with a technical background or have a strong chief technology officer (CTO) or chief AI officer (CAIO) support the CEO's AI strategy and transformation journey."
─ What leadership blind spots do corporations most often miss during AI transformation?
"The most common mistake is confusing AI adoption itself with transformation. Simply introducing AI tools is not enough. Decision-making authority and incentive structures must also change.
Many also view AI only as a technology investment and fail to consider data foundations, operating models, and workforce capability building. When early results appear, leaders often limit investment before the transformation is complete. Finally, seeing AI readiness as a simple HR task is also a representative leadership blind spot."
─ What are the basic elements of AI governance that corporations should establish first?
"First, build a value accountability system. Create a formal transformation organization spanning finance, technology, operations, HR, and risk, and reflect KPIs (key performance indicators) and accountability tied to profit and loss in incentives. Next comes capital discipline. You need a decision-making system that confirms whether operational improvements are actually translating into financial performance before committing additional investment. What underpins these two is the board's substantive AI literacy. For Korean corporations, it is important to build a governance system that internalizes regulation from the outset in line with the AI Basic Act's implementation, rather than applying regulation ex post."
─ What should Korean CEOs and boards prioritize right now, and what decision-making approaches should change to successfully drive AI transformation?
"What matters is not the speed of investment but the structure that delivers results. The priority now is to industrialize AI within actual workflows. Rather than multiplying scattered pilot projects, focus on one to three core functions that can continuously affect profit and loss.
Given the Korean government's AI direct investment plan for this year, two changes are essential. First, shorten the AI decision-making cycle. Korea's consensus-centered governance has strengths for long-term tasks but can be a limitation for AI's speed. Second, make the CEO's accountability clearer. Set metrics tied to profit and loss and review them regularly. Ownership without accountability is just a title."