Why global health organizations are hiring chief AI officers

Organizational design, specifically C-suite composition, has long been recognized as a critical factor for the success of any institution. This core structure defines the organization’s strategic direction, operational trajectory and overall culture. It has been a long-standing tradition that the evolution of information technologies is mirrored in the C-suite composition.

We have seen evidence of this with the splitting of chief information officers from chief technology officers and, in the health space, the introduction of chief digital health and health equity officers. These changes reflect the need for deep expertise in a sprawling field, where it would be inappropriate to expect one person to shoulder all that burden, while also being an effective visionary and strategist.

We are on the precipice of another evolutionary leap: the advent of chief AI officers. LinkedIn reports that the number of chief AI officers has almost tripled over the last five years. This landscape shift signals that more companies and organizations are leaning into this new change where AI is set to transform key industries.

In the digital health sector, PATH led the way by incubating the world’s first market-shaping entity for the digital transformation of health systems – Digital Square. Now we stand at the forefront of large language model research, supporting the development of a benchmarking toolkit focused on low- and middle-income countries and the next generation of clinical decision support tools to assist frontline health workers.

At PATH, we believe that AI, if applied effectively and ethically, has the potential to transform the way we deliver health solutions in aspects of drug discovery and as an aid to clinical decision-making. In response to this critical need for greater strategic integration of AI in healthcare, we have appointed an inaugural chief AI officer — probably the first of its kind within the NGO sector and likely the youngest, yet highly accomplished, to hold such a position. This appointment reflects our willingness and commitment to streamline AI from the highest level to the most granular work.

The skills of a chief AI officer are sufficiently technical, nuanced and unique that we can’t, and shouldn’t solely devolve them to pre-existing team members. These factors informed our decision to select a calibre that holds the trifecta of a medical background, experience in philanthropy and technical knowledge in AI.

PATH’s very own Dr Bilal Mateen is a bone fide world-leading academic expert and our new chief AI officer. He oversees over a quarter of a billion dollars in grants and contracts focused on digital health and AI and he's a trained physician with a deep understanding of health systems globally. He is also a visionary thought leader, having influenced the G20 health working group to explicitly call out the need for greater global solidarity on regulatory science around AI in healthcare. His vision of building global solidarity for AI regulation focuses on circulating research outputs informing critical safeguards as global goods. A global solidarity movement on regulation allows AI to be a force for good to accelerate global health equity, instead of fuelling the existing technological disparity and divide.

PATH’s vision for the structural integration of AI to achieve health equity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, underlines many important notions: financing, localization, digital transformation and regulation. First and foremost, financing: without sufficient investment and alignment among stakeholders, countries risk losing momentum or exacerbating market fragmentation, hindering progress. Localization is also a critical element in the effective and ethical use of AI in low-resource healthcare settings.

Additionally, the conversation on AI integration in healthcare delivery would be incomplete without a transformative investment in low- and middle-income countries’ digital public infrastructure to capitalize on the coming ubiquity of AI in healthcare.

The final pillar is oversight and regulation. We often talk about the positive impact and potential of AI, but we need to contend with the dark reality that the rapid pace of development is quickly creating a series of winners and losers.

This is not a distant future. This divide is happening now between those who can access and test best-in-class models with appropriate safeguards to inform care and those who can’t. The US FDA, for example, has cleared or approved over 900 AI-based tools, whereas most African countries still lack effective regulatory procedures for local review of medical devices, let alone AI-as-a-medical devices. That’s not to suggest these tools aren’t being scaled, but that many low- and middle-income countries lack clear safeguards and mechanisms for recourse when things go wrong.

PATH is proud to lead the way for other organizations in health innovation and the third sector by integrating the AI function into its leadership composition. We encourage other organizations in the health space to join us in building an innovation and solidarity momentum by giving AI experts a voice in their respective leadership teams. This inaugural appointment of the chief AI officer at PATH ushers a new era of revolutionary transformations awaiting organizations working in this space, all for the ultimate goal of accelerating global health equity for a prosperous future for all.