---
id: "claim-c-level-sponsorship-necessity"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["§ 1. Executive sponsorship"]
tags: ["leadership", "governance"]
related: ["action-secure-executive-sponsorship", "entity-cooper-standard", "quote-leadership-roi", "framework-four-pillars-of-ai-success"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
speakers: ["Bruce Lawler", "Vijay D'Silva", "Vivek Arora"]
source_url: "https://hbr.org/2025/01/what-companies-succeeding-with-ai-do-differently"
source_title: "What Companies Succeeding with AI Do Differently"
sources: ["execution"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-execution"
originDay: 8
articleStem: "hbr-cl-89-companies-succeeding-with-ai"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/01/what-companies-succeeding-with-ai-do-differently"
sourceTitle: "What Companies Succeeding with AI Do Differently"
---
# C-level sponsorship is required to navigate uncertain AI ROI

**Claim:** More than **three-quarters (>75%) of AI leaders** in the 2023 survey had **C-level sponsorship**, usually from the **CEO or the board**.

The authors argue this is necessary because AI ROI is notoriously difficult to determine upfront: savings may not be immediate, and benefits (like freeing up employee time) are often **indirect**. Executive cover is required to move forward without clear initial expectations and to direct resources to the highest-potential projects — see [[quote-leadership-roi]].

**Canonical case:** [[entity-cooper-standard]] — an initial ML initiative failed due to a poor partnership, until a senior-level champion stepped in to lead in-house research, producing a successful AI-driven advanced-process-control subsidiary business. This is pillar #1 of [[framework-four-pillars-of-ai-success]]; the directive is [[action-secure-executive-sponsorship]].

**Confidence: high, but note the framing.** Empirical support is strong that C-level sponsorship is a major success factor present in a large share of leaders. The word **"required"** is normative — evidence shows it is *highly correlated* with success, not that success is impossible without it. MIT's GenAI-Divide research suggests **line-manager empowerment** and workflow redesign can be equally critical for scaling; a balanced framing is *"C-level sponsorship + distributed ownership."*


## Related across articles
- [[claim-leadership-drives-roi]]
- [[concept-inaction-risk-calculation]]
- [[concept-executive-buy-in-tactics]]