Amid ongoing geopolitical volatility, CEOs’ confidence in the global economy has fallen to its lowest level in five years, according to KPMG’s latest Global CEO Outlook. Confidence is down from 72% in 2024 to 68% this year.
Despite this, they remain positive about the prospects for their own organisations, with 61% forecasting earnings increases of 2.5% or more over the next three years.
The main pressures that CEOs are seeking to mitigate are:
- cybersecurity and digital risk resilience (39%)
- regulatory compliance and reporting (36%)
- artificial intelligence (AI) integration into operations and workflow (34%).
Tech confidence
Over 70% of CEOs who took part in the survey (from Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US) say AI is a top investment priority, up from 64% a year ago; 69% are allocating 10%-20% of their budget on AI spending.
70% say regulation’s ability to keep up with technology will be a barrier to success
There is also growing confidence about ‘time-to-value’, with 67% anticipating return on investment (ROI) in one to three years. A year ago, 63% did not expect to achieve ROI until three to five years.
There is confidence, too, in the future of AI, with 74% of leaders believing that their organisation can keep pace with the rapid development of the technology and its effects on adoption, operations or workflow. There is also high confidence (89%) that boards are equipped to navigate the adoption of advanced technologies to drive business growth.
However, leaders also identified a number of key issues to navigate, including:
- ethical challenges (59%)
- data readiness (52%)
- lack of regulation (50%).
Nearly 70% say that regulation’s ability to keep up with the technology itself will be a barrier to success.
People mean prosperity
CEOs are committed to people-led deployment of new technologies, reshaping workforces at speed by retraining, hiring and redesigning roles to embed AI.
Over three-quarters (77%) agree that workforce AI readiness and upskilling will impact their organisation’s prosperity over the next three years, and 70% agree that competition for AI talent could constrain this success.
CEOs see the potential for AI to support their decarbonisation and sustainability efforts
Meanwhile, 88% say that labour market shifts and demographic changes, particularly an ageing workforce, are having a moderate to high impact on recruitment, retention and culture.
Sustainability hurdles
Most corporate leaders remain strongly committed to their sustainability goals and are increasingly confident in meeting them.
Although 65% of CEOs have fully embedded sustainability into their business, only 29% say that sustainability considerations are fully integrated with capital expenditure decisions.
More information
Find out more on AI, sustainability and talent trends in ACCA’s virtual conference Accounting for the Future, live on 25-27 November or on demand, offering up to 21 units of CPD
