More than half of the world’s CEOs have yet to see revenue or cost benefits from the use of AI in their business, according to a new survey.
PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, which is based on responses from more than 4,000 chief executives across 95 countries and territories, found that only a relatively small proportion of CEOs are applying AI to a large extent in areas such as demand generation and support services. This confirms a 2025 Global Workforce Survey by the Big Four firm, which found that only 14% of employees were using generative AI on a daily basis. ‘Clearly,’ says the CEO report, ‘we are in the early stages of the AI era.’
As a result, business leaders are yet to gain significant benefits from AI, with 56% saying they have seen neither lower costs nor higher revenue. Only a third report increased revenue from AI in the past 12 months, and just over a quarter said that costs are lower because of AI.
Battered confidence
The 2026 CEO survey also found a marked decline in business leaders’ confidence in short-term revenue growth. Only 30% are very or extremely confident that their company will increase its revenue in the next 12 months, down from 38% in last year’s survey and far short of the 56% peak recorded in 2022.
While CEOs are worried about the impact of tariffs – 29% say tariffs will reduce their company’s net profit margin this year – a wide range of risks are having an impact on confidence. Concerns about significant exposure to cyber threats have risen sharply over the past year, with the 24% of CEOs saying that their organisation is ‘highly’ or ‘extremely’ exposed to cyber threats in 2025 rising to 31% in 2026, putting it alongside macroeconomic volatility as a top threat.
This wide range of pressing threats may explain why CEOs say they are spending nearly half (47%) of their time on average on issues with time horizons of under a year, and only 16% on activities with a horizon of more than five years.
Globalisation agenda
Just over half the CEOs taking part in the survey (51%) say their company is planning to make international investments in the year ahead. The US remains the top destination for their investment, followed by Germany. The proportion intending to invest in India has almost doubled over the past year, from 7% to 13%, and both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates break into the top 10 of investment destinations for the first time.
The report says the picture is one ‘of globalisation in transition, not in retreat’, with new value pools beginning to emerge as the global economy reconfigures. But it also warns that companies that are acting more cautiously in terms of investment because of geopolitical uncertainty are growing more slowly than their peers. ‘While there is no single answer to the challenges CEOs face,’ it concludes, ‘perhaps the biggest danger is denial.’
