Bridging the C-Suite and V-Suite: Unlocking Bottom-Up GenAI Innovation

The New Dynamic of Generative AI Adoption

Generative AI (GenAI) has rapidly evolved from a promising experiment to a core driver of business transformation. Yet, as organizations race to harness its potential, a critical organizational challenge has emerged: a disconnect between executive leadership (the C-suite) and operational leaders and practitioners (the V-suite). This gap is not just a matter of perspective—it’s a structural issue that can stall innovation, create risk, and limit the value GenAI can deliver.

Recent research reveals that while the C-suite is focused on high-visibility use cases—customer experience, service, and sales—the V-suite is driving innovation across a broader set of functions, including operations, HR, and finance. In many organizations, the most transformative GenAI initiatives are emerging from the ground up, led by those closest to the work and the customer. This bottom-up energy is a powerful force, but it also brings new risks: shadow IT, duplication of effort, and a lack of coordinated governance.

The C-Suite vs. V-Suite: Different Views, Different Risks

The C-suite and V-suite approach GenAI from distinct vantage points:

C-suite leaders prioritize visible, customer-facing applications and are more likely to be concerned about risk, ethics, and regulatory exposure. Over half of C-level respondents in recent studies cited risk and ethics as top concerns, compared to just 23% of V-suite leaders.
V-suite leaders—VPs, directors, and operational executives—see GenAI’s potential in back-office functions, process automation, and domain-specific innovation. They are more attuned to the practical constraints and opportunities of the technology, and less likely to be paralyzed by abstract risks.

This divergence creates a shakeout moment: while nearly all organizations are making progress with GenAI, few have a clear way to measure success, and most are at multiple stages of maturity simultaneously. More than two-thirds of organizations lack a defined approach to measuring GenAI ROI, and over half of those building custom solutions still describe themselves as only moderately mature.

The Reality of Bottom-Up Innovation—and Its Risks

The distributed nature of GenAI adoption means that experimentation is happening far from the boardroom. Employees are using tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot in their daily workflows, often without formal oversight. This grassroots innovation is essential for discovering new value, but it also introduces real risks:

Shadow IT: Teams may create their own GenAI solutions, bypassing IT and security protocols, exposing the organization to data privacy and regulatory risks.
Duplication of Effort: Without coordination, different teams may unknowingly tackle the same problems, wasting resources and missing opportunities for scale.
Unmanaged Risk: The lack of a unified approach can lead to inconsistent standards for ethics, compliance, and data governance.

Harnessing Bottom-Up Energy: The Portfolio Approach

To unlock the full value of GenAI, organizations must bridge the C-suite and V-suite divide. The answer is not to stifle experimentation, but to channel it through a portfolio approach:

Balance flagship and grassroots projects: Don’t bet everything on a single, high-profile initiative. Instead, create a balanced portfolio of GenAI projects—some led from the top, others emerging from the front lines.
Empower domain experts: Encourage V-suite leaders and practitioners to identify and pilot new use cases, while providing the support and guardrails needed to manage risk.
Connect business and IT: Foster regular communication between business units, IT, and risk management to ensure alignment and avoid duplication.
Engage the risk office early: Involve compliance and risk leaders from the outset, not just as a final checkpoint.

Practical Steps for Upskilling and Change Management

A successful GenAI strategy requires upskilling at all levels. The workforce of the future will need not just technical skills, but the ability to critically evaluate AI outputs, manage AI agents, and maintain ethical guardrails. Leading organizations are:

Investing in continuous learning: From prompt engineering to AI ethics, training must be ongoing and interdisciplinary.
Redefining roles: New positions such as "AI engineer" or "AI agent manager" are emerging, focused on orchestrating AI systems rather than just coding them.
Fostering a culture of experimentation: Encourage teams to test, learn, and share results—while making it safe to fail and learn from mistakes.

Balancing Experimentation with Governance

A zero-risk policy is a zero-innovation policy. The most successful organizations are those that balance the need for speed and experimentation with robust governance. This means:

Embedding governance into workflows: Move from after-the-fact oversight to real-time, policy-based controls.
Standardizing data and security practices: Ensure that all GenAI initiatives, whether top-down or bottom-up, adhere to common standards for data privacy, security, and compliance.
Creating transparent measurement frameworks: Develop clear metrics for GenAI success, including both business outcomes and risk mitigation.

The Path Forward: Bridging the Divide for Scalable GenAI Impact

The GenAI revolution is not a top-down mandate or a bottom-up free-for-all—it’s a new model of distributed innovation that requires both executive vision and practitioner ingenuity. By bridging the C-suite and V-suite, organizations can:

Accelerate the move from pilots to production by scaling what works and learning quickly from what doesn’t.
Reduce risk and duplication by coordinating efforts and embedding governance from the start.
Unlock new sources of value by empowering those closest to the work to innovate, while ensuring alignment with strategic goals.

At Publicis Sapient, we help clients navigate this new landscape with a comprehensive approach to GenAI transformation—combining strategy, technology, and change management to maximize impact at every level of the organization. Our portfolio approach, proprietary tools, and deep expertise in digital business transformation ensure that your GenAI journey is both bold and safe, experimental and governed, bottom-up and top-down.

Ready to bridge the gap and unlock the full potential of GenAI? Let’s connect.