Software firm Pendo recently named 23-year-old Zain Lakhani its chief AI officer — part of a small but growing trend of companies elevating Gen Z “AI natives” to the C-suite, The Wall Street Journal reported June 25.
“He’s got experiences we don’t have. He’s got perspective we don’t have,” Pendo CEO Todd Olson, 50, told the Journal of Mr. Lakhani.
Members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, rarely hold executive roles that typically take years to reach. But some employers are weighing AI fluency over experience as they race to adopt the technology. Clockwise Capital, for instance, named Eric Harrison its chief AI officer at 26, according to the story.
A scarcity of AI-literate talent is one of the biggest hurdles to enterprise adoption, as Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s head of economics for the Americas, told the Journal. Younger workers are more likely to hold AI skills, he said, helping some move into senior roles faster.
The shift carries implications for healthcare, where health systems face the same talent crunch as they embed AI into clinical and administrative work. Over the past few years, organizations including Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic have created chief AI officer roles to govern the technology.
So far, those posts have gone to veteran physician, data and informatics executives — not 20-somethings. Whether the AI-native hiring seen in tech reaches hospital C-suites may hinge on how quickly health systems prioritize fluency over tenure.
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