Readiness Checklist BeforeYour CAIO's First Day
What the firm must decide, prepare, and provide so a new Chief AI Officer can start helping on day one. Every item left unresolved is a week they'll spend chasing access or waiting on decisions instead of helping.
How to use this
Complete this before your new Chief AI Officer's first day. Assign an owner to each item and check it off as it's done. The items marked Before Day 1 are the non-negotiables — resolve these or your hire starts stalled. Everything else should be complete within their first two weeks. The single most important cluster is Section A: a CAIO who arrives without a clear mandate, budget, and reporting line is set up to fail no matter how good they are.
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0 / 61 done
Mandate & authority
Decide and document before Day 10/8The most common reason these hires stall is arriving to an undefined role. Settle every row here in writing.
Budget & resources
Confirm before Day 10/6People & stakeholder access
0/11Prepare warm introductions — the CAIO leads through relationships, and cold outreach to 40 partners wastes the first month.
Systems & access provisioning
Provision before Day 10/8Current-state documentation — the “data room”
0/11Assemble these so the CAIO can diagnose in days, not weeks.
Governance & risk baseline
0/8A status check the CAIO will need immediately — and a prompt to fix the urgent gap.
If there is no acceptable-use policy (row 1), this is the firm's most urgent gap. Lawyers are likely already using consumer AI tools with client material. Expect the CAIO to make an interim guardrail their first act — give them the authority to do so.
Communication & change readiness
0/5Quick-start enablers
0/4Accelerators, not blockers.
Readiness gate — before Day 1, you must have:
- 1A documented mandate, reporting line, and scope of authority (Section A)
- 2A confirmed budget and approved headcount (Section B)
- 3A named executive sponsor (Section A)
- 4System access provisioned (Section D)
- 5The current-state data room assembled (Section E)
- 6A clear answer on whether an AI use policy exists — and authority for the CAIO to fix it if not (Section F)
If any of these six is unchecked, delay the start or close the gap first. A CAIO who walks in without them spends their scarce early credibility solving problems the firm should have solved before they arrived.
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