During a dinner conversation at FutureNet World, I was asked a simple question:
What do you think your role will be in three years?
The question stayed with me.
My first instinct was to say that the traditional CTO role may not exist in the form we know today. Not because technology leadership becomes less important, but because I believe it is about to change shape very deeply.
The more I reflect on it, the more I believe we are moving toward a world where AI agents will take on a growing share of what technology organizations do today. Not only in coding, but also in architecture, engineering execution, documentation, optimization, analysis, and many of the tasks that currently sit across software and delivery teams.
If that happens, then leadership also changes.
The question is no longer only: who builds?
It becomes: who imagines, who sees clearly, who defines direction, who translates ambiguity into strategy, and who ensures that execution remains meaningful, trusted, and aligned?
That is what led me to a thought:
Maybe one of the next evolutions of technology leadership is a move from Chief Technology Officer toward something closer to a Chief Visionary Officer.
More vision, not less technology
I do not mean this as a formal title proposal for every company.
I mean it as a reflection on where leadership may be heading.
The future leader I imagine is not defined mainly by supervising delivery factories. Instead, that person holds a clear view of where the business, the platform, the product, and the technology need to go.
The role becomes less about manually directing every layer of execution and more about creating the intellectual and strategic system that allows execution to happen at far greater speed and scale.
Around that leader, I imagine a different kind of team:
- strategic thinkers
- domain experts
- business translators
- specification writers
- AI-native engineering leads
- validators and governance-minded people
Together, they take a vision and break it down: from vision, to strategy, to structured specification, to execution.
Then AI agents increasingly take over larger parts of the downstream work:
- generating solution options
- producing architecture
- writing code
- executing tasks
- testing scenarios
- iterating faster
- and returning outputs for review
But those outputs do not go directly into reality unchecked.
They still need to be challenged, validated, tested, approved, and governed by humans.
That is why I do not see this as a future without engineers or without leadership.
I see it as a future where humans move further up the value chain.
From offshore to AIshore
A second question came that same evening:
What happens to the developers we have today?
For me, this is where the transformation becomes most human.
A few years ago, many organizations still worked mainly with local delivery teams. Then nearshore and offshore models changed the way we built technology. Delivery scaled by redistributing work geographically.
I believe we are now entering another era.
An AIshore era.
In this new model, scale comes less from where people sit and more from how effectively humans can direct, constrain, and collaborate with AI agents.
That does not mean engineering disappears.
It means engineering changes shape.
The capabilities that become more important are the ability to:
- understand the business problem deeply
- translate ambiguity into structured intent
- write clear specifications
- define constraints and expected outcomes
- guide agents effectively
- validate what comes back
- and continuously improve the system of execution
This is why I do not believe the future belongs only to those who know how to code in the traditional sense.
I believe it belongs to those who can combine:
- business understanding
- systems thinking
- structured writing
- technical judgment
- and AI fluency
What happens to today’s developers?
My answer is not that they disappear.
My answer is that their role evolves.
The best developers of tomorrow may not be the ones who write the most code manually.
They may be the ones who:
- understand the business problem most deeply
- translate complexity into clear requirements
- write strong specifications
- structure work effectively for agents
- guide, challenge, and improve AI outputs
- and make sound technical judgments when it matters
In that sense, some developers may increasingly become managers of agents.
Not managers in a bureaucratic sense, but in a creative and technical sense, people who orchestrate execution, shape direction, improve quality, and unlock more value in less time.
And honestly, I find that exciting.
Because it means that some of the most talented engineers may spend less time on repetitive implementation, and more time on solving real business problems, improving design, accelerating innovation, and creating better outcomes.
Why writing may become a strategic engineering skill
One of the thoughts that keeps coming back to me is how important specification writing may become in this future.
We often underestimate writing in technology organizations.
But if AI agents are going to architect, build, and execute more of the downstream work, then the quality of the input becomes critical.
A vague request produces vague output. An unclear specification creates waste, rework, confusion, and weak results. A well-structured specification creates alignment, speed, precision, and trust.
This is not just about prompting.
It is about understanding a business need, defining intent clearly, setting boundaries, expressing constraints, describing expected outcomes, and making decisions legible enough for both humans and machines.
That is a very different skill from traditional coding alone.
And I believe it will become one of the most valuable skills in the AI era.
The future organization
If this direction proves right, future technology organizations may look very different.
Instead of being built mainly around large pools of people executing work manually, they may be built around smaller, highly capable teams that:
- define vision
- translate business intent
- structure specifications
- orchestrate agentic execution
- validate outcomes
- govern risk
- and continuously improve the delivery platform itself
That is why I think leadership itself may evolve.
Maybe the future title is not CTO in the traditional sense.
Maybe it becomes something closer to Chief Visionary Officer: a leader responsible for vision, strategic direction, narrative, structured intent, and trust in execution.
Not because leadership becomes less technical.
But because technology execution itself becomes more automated, and the human role becomes more focused on meaning, judgment, and direction.
Final thought
I do not think this shift will happen overnight.
And I do not think every company, leader, or engineer will move at the same speed.
But I do believe we are approaching a major change in how software, architecture, and engineering are created.
The future may belong less to organizations that simply scale execution, and more to those that can combine vision, strategy, specification, AI orchestration, and human judgment in a much tighter loop.
So maybe the question is no longer whether the CTO role will remain the same.
Maybe the better question is:
What kind of leader does an AI-native organization actually need?
I would be genuinely interested in how others see this.
This article reflects my personal perspective only and does not represent the official position of my employer.
Also published on LinkedIn, where the discussion is.
