Top 20 influential Chief AI Officers in the Silicon Valley area 2026

Silicon Valley remains the global epicenter for AI and technology.

💡

As of 2026, its tech landscape is only expanding further, with the region home to multi-billion dollar valuations and some of the biggest names in AI.

With that in mind, the following list includes 20 of the most influential Chief AI Officers in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area ahead of what is set to be a significant year for the region.

Enjoy!

20. Yang Song – SVP & Chief Data Science and AI Officer, Equinix

Experienced in deep-tech in large-scale data systems. He was appointed in late 2025 to solve the ‘AI energy crisis’ at the infrastructure level.

Core projects: Smart Data Centers: Implementing AI-driven liquid cooling and power-routing systems that use machine learning to predict GPU heat spikes before they happen.

AI marketplace: Creating a private ‘AI exchange’ that allows enterprise customers to run their models directly on Equinix’s high-speed interconnects.

19. Xavier Amatriain – Chief AI and Data Officer, Expedia Group

Former VP of Engineering at LinkedIn and leading in recommendation systems at Netflix.

Core projects: The AI Travel Concierge: A 2026 project that uses agentic AI to not just suggest flights, but to autonomously handle re-bookings and hotel negotiations during weather delays.

Unified travel graph: Building a massive data layer that predicts traveler ‘vibe’ and intent based on multi-modal inputs (images, past behavior, and real-time social trends).

18. Laiq Ahmad – Chief AI Officer, Pathward

Financial services tech leader focused on digital inclusion.

Core projects: Inclusive Lending AI; developing non-biased credit scoring models for under-banked populations using alternative data sets.

Top 20 influential Chief AI Officers in the Silicon Valley area 2026

17. Klarissa Marenitch – Chief AI and Technology Officer, Cognizant

Global technology leader.

Core projects: The AI Migration Factory; using “Vibe Coding” agents to rewrite millions of lines of legacy COBOL code into modern, AI-supported Python.

💡

You can see Klarissa Marenitch’s session ‘Driving enterprise AI adoption: Integrating autonomous agents’ at Chief AI Officer Summit, Silicon Valley on April 14.

16. Vijay Kotu – Chief AI & Analytics Officer, ServiceNow

Long-time analytics lead and author of Data Science: Concepts and Practice.

Core projects: The AI Control Tower: A centralized dashboard for CIOs that tracks the ROI and hallucination rates of every AI agent deployed across a company.

Zero-touch IT: Using predictive AI to resolve server and software issues before employees even realize there is a technical glitch.

15. Srilekha Akula – Chief Data and AI Officer, Trimedx

Data pioneer in the clinical engineering space.

Core projects: Medical Device Predictive Maintenance; using AI to predict when hospital equipment (like ventilators) will fail before the alarm sounds.

14. Praveen Gunasekaran – Chief AI Architect & Senior Director, Visa

Has a background that spans building algorithmic trading systems on Wall Street to leading massive ML initiatives.

Core projects: Generative AI Platform: Founder and architect of Visa’s enterprise-wide GenAI platform, which integrates knowledge graphs and multi-agentic systems.

💡

You can hear from Praveen Gunasekaran at Chief AI Officer Summit, Silicon Valley on April 14 with the session ‘Architecting enterprise-grade AI agents: Reliability, orchestration, and system integration’.

13. Ketan Babaria – Chief Digital and AI Officer, eHealth

Previously product lead at Capital One and McKinsey.

Core projects: Medicare Matcher: An LLM-powered tool that reads a senior’s specific drug list and doctor preferences to find the single cheapest insurance plan.

Agent empowerment: Using AI to coach human insurance agents in real-time during sales calls.

12. Marc Kermisch – Chief Technology & AI Officer, Protolabs

Digital manufacturing expert.

Core projects: Design for Manufacturability (DFM) AI: An engine that tells engineers why their 3D part might fail during the printing process and suggests geometric fixes.

Supply chain resilience AI: Predicting raw material shortages (like specific resins or alloys) 6 months in advance.

11. Vinay Patel – Chief Trust & AI Security Officer, Zendesk

Cybersecurity pioneer focusing on the “Red Teaming” of LLMs.

Core projects: Agent Guardrails – a software layer that prevents customer service bots from ‘going rogue’ or offering unauthorized discounts.

Privacy-first CX: Automated PII (Personally Identifiable Information) masking in customer support transcripts.

💡

You can see Vinay Patel’s session ‘Securing the AI stack: From foundational models to deployment pipelines’ at Chief AI Officer Summit, Silicon Valley, on April 14.

10. Milind Nagnur – Chief AI Officer, Optum (UnitedHealth Group)

Former CTO of Early Warning (Zelle) and Wells Fargo lead.

Core projects: Claim Automation Engine – reducing the ‘denial-of-service’ friction by using AI to pre-approve medical claims that meet strict criteria.

Clinical summarization: An AI that listens to doctor-patient visits and automatically updates Electronic Health Records (EHR).

9. Manish Limaye – Chief Data & AI Officer, Revinate

Pioneer of the hospitality data ecosystem.

Core projects: Hyper-Personalized Guest Journeys – using predictive AI to automate email and text marketing for thousands of hotels, generating billions in direct revenue.

Sentiment engine: Analyzing guest reviews across the web to provide hotels with actionable “fix-it” lists.

8. Maria Zhang – CEO & Chief AI Architect, Palona AI

Former CTO of Tinder and VP at Yahoo.

Core projects: The Social Copilot: Developing an AI that manages a user’s ‘digital twin’ on social platforms, handling DMs and basic networking.

Emotional AI: Researching LLMs that can detect subtle shifts in user mood through text and voice.

7. Prashant Mehrotra – EVP & Chief AI Officer, U.S. Bank

Background in risk management and algorithmic finance.

Core projects: Compliance Bot 2.0: A generative AI that audits every customer interaction against SEC and FINRA regulations in real-time.

Personal wealth agents: AI-driven financial advisors that manage index fund rebalancing based on a user’s verbal life goals.

💡

Catch Prashant Mehrotra’s session ‘The new accountability layer: AI in production’ at Chief AI Officer Summit, Silicon Valley on April 14.

6. Ali Keshavarz – Chief AI Officer, CVS Health

Former digital transformation lead at McKinsey.

Core projects: Pharmacy Flow AI: Using computer vision and NLP to automate prescription verification, significantly reducing human error in pharmacy chains.

Health dashboard: A consumer-facing LLM that interprets complex medical bills and benefits for CVS/Aetna members.

5. Parminder Bhatia – Chief AI Officer, GE HealthCare

Former Amazon Health AI leader; deep expertise in HIPAA-compliant machine learning.

Core projects: Imaging Agent 1.0: An autonomous diagnostic assistant that flags anomalies in MRIs and CT scans in real-time before the radiologist even opens the file.

Command center AI: A predictive engine that manages hospital bed flow and patient discharge timing to reduce clinical burnout.

4. Eric Hysen – Chief AI and Transformation Officer, Salesforce

Formerly the first-ever CAIO for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a Google engineering pioneer.

Core projects: Agentforce 2.0: Moving Salesforce from a ‘CRM with a side of AI’ to a platform where autonomous Agentic Workers handle 80% of routine customer support and sales prospecting.

3. Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov – Chief AI Officer, eBay

Former AI lead at BCG and American Express.

Core projects: Agentic Commerce Framework: In early 2026, he led the effort to ban 3rd-party bots while launching eBay’s own ‘Buying Agents’ that negotiate and purchase on behalf of users.

Semantic marketplace: Redesigning eBay’s search from keywords to a reasoning-based system that understands the intent behind a seller’s messy listing.

2. Mustafa Suleyman – CEO & Chief AI Officer, Microsoft AI

Co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI. Suleyman now oversees all consumer AI at Microsoft.

Core Projects: Humanist Superintelligence: A 2026 initiative focusing on ‘agentic’ memory – AI that remembers every interaction across Windows and mobile to proactively manage schedules.

Vibe Coding integration: Pushing LLMs to move from writing code to interpreting ‘intent’, allowing non-developers to build complex software through natural language.

1. Alexandr Wang – Chief AI Officer, Meta

Co-founder/CEO of Scale AI. In mid-2025, Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI, and Wang transitioned into this inaugural CAIO role to lead Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL).

Core projects: Llama 4 & 5 Development: Shifting Meta from open-source ‘efficient’ models to closed-source ‘frontier’ superintelligence to compete directly with OpenAI.

Meta compute infrastructure: Harmonizing Meta’s massive H100/B200 GPU clusters with unified software layers for autonomous agent training.

🚀 Catch some of Silicon Valley’s top tech leaders at Chief AI Officer Summit on April 14.

Step into the room where the Bay Area’s top AI decision-makers shape what’s next.

Apply for your pass and:

Connect with leading Chief AI Officers from multi-billion-dollar tech companies.
Gain strategic insights on scaling AI across enterprise environments.
Explore real-world case studies driving measurable AI impact.
Network with senior AI leaders, innovators, and technology partners.
Position yourself at the forefront of AI leadership in Silicon Valley.

Spots are limited. Secure your place among the leaders defining AI in 2026.

Find out more