PwC 29th Global CEO Survey 2026: Leading Through Uncertainty in the Age of AI

The AI Adoption Reality Check for CEOs

The PwC 29th Global CEO Survey, encompassing responses from 4,454 chief executives across 95 countries and territories, delivers a sobering assessment of where enterprises actually stand with artificial intelligence. The headline finding: more than half of all CEOs (56%) say their companies have realized neither higher revenues nor lower costs from AI investments over the past 12 months.

The numbers reveal a stark adoption spectrum. Only 30% of CEOs report that AI has generated additional revenue, while 26% have achieved cost reductions. A mere 12% — designated as the “vanguard” by PwC — have realized both revenue gains and cost savings simultaneously. This elite group provides critical insights into what separates successful enterprise AI deployment from the majority that are still searching for returns.

The vanguard companies share a common characteristic: they have invested in robust AI foundations before scaling deployment. These foundations include a technology environment that enables seamless AI integration, a clearly defined roadmap for AI initiatives aligned with business strategy, formalized responsible AI and risk management processes, and an organizational culture that enables AI adoption at every level. Vanguard companies are also applying AI more extensively — 44% have embedded AI into their products, services, and customer experiences, compared to just 17% for other companies.

When asked to identify the question that concerns them most, CEOs gave a clear answer: “Are we transforming our business fast enough to keep up with technology, including AI?” This self-awareness, combined with the data showing that most companies have not yet captured tangible AI value, suggests that the real AI transformation wave is still building. For organizations navigating this critical inflection point, our interactive library features comprehensive analyses of how leading firms are deploying AI at enterprise scale.

CEO Confidence Declines as Global Threats Multiply

CEO confidence in near-term revenue growth has deteriorated significantly. Only 30% of CEOs express strong confidence about revenue growth over the next 12 months, down sharply from 38% in 2025 and the recent peak of 56% in 2022. This 26-percentage-point decline over four years reflects a fundamental shift in how business leaders perceive the operating environment.

The drivers of this pessimism are multiple and interconnected. Macroeconomic volatility tops the list of concerns, as central banks navigate complex interest rate decisions amid persistent inflation in some economies and deflationary pressures in others. Cyber risk has intensified as enterprises expand their digital footprints, with AI-powered threats creating new attack vectors alongside new defensive capabilities. Geopolitical conflict continues to disrupt supply chains, trade flows, and investment planning across regions.

The confidence decline is not uniform across geographies or sectors. CEOs in export-dependent economies and manufacturing-intensive industries report steeper drops in confidence, reflecting direct exposure to trade policy uncertainty and supply chain disruption. Conversely, CEOs in domestic services and technology sectors maintain relatively higher confidence levels, benefiting from more insulated business models and secular growth trends.

Despite the short-term pessimism, PwC notes an important paradox: many of the same CEOs expressing concern about the near term are simultaneously investing aggressively in long-term transformation. This tension between short-term caution and long-term ambition defines the current leadership challenge and helps explain why the survey’s central theme — leading through uncertainty — resonates so strongly with participants.

Cross-Sector Reinvention and Industry Boundary Disruption

One of the most significant structural shifts identified in the PwC CEO Survey is the accelerating dissolution of traditional industry boundaries. More than 40% of CEOs report that their companies have started competing in new sectors over the past five years. Among those planning major acquisitions in the next three years, 44% expect to make deals outside their existing sector or industry — a striking indicator of how fundamentally executives are rethinking their competitive positioning.

The motivations for cross-sector expansion are both offensive and defensive. The collision of technology, climate change, geopolitics, and other megatrends is creating entirely new customer needs, enabling novel business models, and blurring the distinctions that once defined separate industries. Companies that confine themselves to traditional sector boundaries risk missing the growth opportunities that emerge at these intersections.

PwC’s data demonstrates that cross-sector pioneers are outperforming their more conventional peers. Companies generating a higher percentage of revenue from new sectors report both higher profitability and greater CEO confidence in growth prospects. The relationship between cross-sector expansion and financial performance is statistically significant after controlling for company size, geography, and other factors — suggesting a genuine causal link rather than mere correlation.

Technology is the most sought-after growth sector for CEOs globally. Technology company leaders, in turn, are targeting healthcare, business services, and banking and capital markets for expansion — reflecting the ongoing convergence of fintech with traditional banking and the growing role of technology platforms in healthcare delivery. This cross-pollination of capabilities and business models is likely to accelerate as AI enables faster market entry and more agile organizational structures.

Tariff Impact on CEO Business Strategy and Profit Margins

Trade policy uncertainty has emerged as a significant concern in the 2026 CEO Survey, with almost a third (29%) of CEOs reporting that tariffs will reduce their company’s net profit margin over the next 12 months. However, the majority (60%) expect little to no change, and among those anticipating margin compression, most expect only a slight decline — suggesting that the aggregate tariff impact may be less severe than headline fears suggest.

The distribution of tariff exposure is highly uneven across industries and geographies. Manufacturing companies with complex international supply chains and significant export volumes face the greatest pressure, as tariffs can simultaneously increase input costs and reduce competitiveness in foreign markets. Services companies and those with primarily domestic revenue bases are more insulated, which partly explains the overall moderate impact assessment.

More revealing than the direct tariff impact is how trade uncertainty affects strategic decision-making. PwC’s analysis shows that companies whose CEOs cite geopolitical uncertainty as a reason to reduce large new investments are consistently underperforming. These cautious companies, representing 15% of the sample, grow more slowly and operate at lower margins than their more dynamic peers — suggesting that the indirect cost of uncertainty-driven inaction may exceed the direct cost of tariffs themselves.

For business leaders, the implication is clear: while prudent risk management around tariff exposure is necessary, allowing trade policy uncertainty to paralyze investment decisions carries its own significant cost. The most successful companies in PwC’s survey are those that maintain strategic investment momentum while developing the operational agility to adapt quickly to evolving trade conditions.

Innovation as a Revenue Growth Engine

Innovation practices emerge as a powerful differentiator in the PwC survey. Approximately 8% of respondents are using proven innovation methodologies to drive revenue from new products and services. These innovation leaders are growing faster overall and achieving higher profit margins than their peers — a finding that holds even after adjusting for sector, company size, and geographic differences.

The connection between innovation investment and financial performance operates through multiple channels. Companies that systematically develop and launch new products and services create additional revenue streams that reduce dependence on legacy offerings. They also build organizational capabilities — including cross-functional collaboration, rapid prototyping, and customer-centric design — that improve execution across the entire business.

AI plays an increasingly central role in innovation capabilities. Vanguard companies that have achieved both cost savings and revenue growth from AI are applying the technology extensively to their products, services, and customer experiences. This suggests that AI is not merely an efficiency tool but a catalyst for creating new value propositions that drive top-line growth. The survey data shows that enterprise-scale AI deployment, not isolated AI projects, is what distinguishes companies capturing tangible innovation value.

The OECD’s research on innovation in firms corroborates these findings, showing that systematic R&D investment yields compounding returns. PwC recommends that CEOs adopt a portfolio approach to innovation investment, balancing incremental improvements to existing offerings with breakthrough initiatives that can open new markets. The companies achieving the strongest innovation returns are those that have formalized their innovation processes and aligned them with overall business strategy, rather than treating innovation as an ad hoc activity managed at the margins of the organization.

Stakeholder Trust as a Measurable Business Asset

PwC’s survey reveals that two-thirds of CEOs (66%) report stakeholder trust concerns arising in at least one area of business operations over the past 12 months. More importantly, the data shows a significant gap in total shareholder returns between public companies experiencing the most trust concerns and those experiencing the fewest — establishing trust as a quantifiable driver of financial performance, not merely a reputational consideration.

Trust operates across three interlocking dimensions identified by PwC: operational trust (built on efficient, resilient operations), accountability trust (resting on high-quality reporting and communications), and digital trust (based on systems and processes that protect sensitive data, maintain secure operations, and enable responsible use of digital tools). Weakness in any dimension can undermine overall stakeholder confidence and erode value.

The rise of AI deployment across enterprises makes digital trust particularly critical. PwC’s research demonstrates that robust Responsible AI programs build trust and create value by reducing the frequency of adverse AI-related incidents and helping companies recover faster when such events occur. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in customer-facing processes and business-critical decisions, the stakes associated with digital trust will only increase.

Despite the clear financial implications, many CEOs could do more to proactively address trust vulnerabilities. While no company can fully inoculate itself against trust losses, deliberate investments in data governance, process controls, and transparent communication can significantly reduce trust-related risks. Companies that treat trust as a boardroom priority — rather than delegating it to communications teams — are better positioned to protect and create shareholder value through our interactive library of related governance and strategy analyses.

Dynamic Companies Outperform Cautious Competitors

Perhaps the most compelling finding in PwC’s survey is the clear performance divergence between dynamic and cautious companies. Cautious companies — defined as those not planning acquisitions and reducing investment due to geopolitical uncertainty — comprise 15% of the sample. They grow at a rate two percentage points below dynamic peers and operate with profit margins three percentage points lower. Over time, these differentials compound into substantial competitive gaps.

Dynamic companies share several distinguishing characteristics. They are furthest ahead on enterprise-scale AI deployment, with vanguard companies (12% of the total) achieving both cost savings and revenue growth from AI. They use proven innovation practices to drive new product revenue. And they actively pursue cross-sector expansion, generating a growing share of revenue from competing in new industries. Each of these activities involves risk and investment, but the data consistently shows that the risk of inaction is greater.

The dynamism gap is evident across every major dimension of the survey. Dynamic companies report stronger revenue growth, higher profit margins, greater CEO confidence in future prospects, and more extensive AI deployment. They also demonstrate greater resilience to external shocks, as their diversified business portfolios and operational agility provide natural hedges against the specific risks that paralyze their cautious counterparts.

The World Economic Forum’s analysis of global competitiveness trends supports PwC’s findings, consistently showing that companies maintaining investment momentum through uncertainty periods outperform those that retrench. For CEOs weighing the risks of action versus inaction, the PwC data provides strong evidence that strategic boldness — backed by disciplined execution — is the winning approach in today’s volatile environment.

CEO Time Allocation and the Tyranny of the Urgent

PwC’s survey includes a revealing analysis of how CEOs allocate their time across different planning horizons. On average, CEOs globally dedicate 47% of their time to activities with time horizons of less than one year — three times more than the 16% devoted to issues with horizons beyond five years. The remaining 37% is spent on medium-term activities spanning one to five years.

Time allocation patterns vary significantly by company type and geography. Private equity-backed company CEOs spend 57% of their time on short-term matters, consistent with PE investors’ focus on value realization over defined holding periods. Other private company CEOs also skew short-term at 51%, while public company CEOs are somewhat more balanced at 39% on short-term activities. Chinese Mainland CEOs stand out as spending significantly more time on medium-term (49%) and long-term (28%) horizons compared to US and European peers.

PwC identifies a counterintuitive paradox: CEOs who say the company’s medium- to long-term viability is one of their most pressing questions actually spend more time than others on short-term activities. This suggests that awareness of the strategic transformation imperative alone is insufficient — without deliberate calendar reinvention, the tyranny of the urgent will continue to crowd out the strategic thinking that reinvention demands.

The practical recommendation from PwC is direct: CEOs must consciously restructure how they invest their time. In crisis situations, short-term focus is appropriate. But many CEOs who know they should be devoting more attention to long-term business viability are trapped in operational firefighting that prevents them from addressing the very challenges they recognize as existential. Breaking this pattern requires deliberate organizational design, including delegation frameworks that free CEO time for strategic priorities.

Building Enterprise-Scale AI Foundations for Measurable ROI

The PwC CEO Survey’s most actionable insight concerns the pathway from AI experimentation to enterprise value creation. PwC’s data, combined with extensive client engagement, confirms that isolated, tactical AI projects rarely deliver measurable returns. The 12% of vanguard companies achieving both revenue and cost benefits from AI have followed a fundamentally different approach: building strong AI foundations that enable enterprise-scale deployment consistent with overall business strategy.

These foundations encompass four critical elements. First, a technology environment that enables AI integration across business processes, not just within isolated applications. Second, a clearly defined roadmap for AI initiatives that connects AI investments to specific business outcomes and strategic priorities. Third, formalized Responsible AI and risk management processes that build the digital trust required for broad deployment. Fourth, an organizational culture that enables AI adoption by empowering employees and reducing resistance to change.

The gap between vanguard companies and the broader population is not primarily about technology sophistication or investment levels — it is about organizational readiness and strategic alignment. Many companies are deploying AI to a limited extent: only 22% apply it extensively to demand generation, 20% to support services, 19% to products and experiences, 15% to direction setting, and 13% to demand fulfillment. Only 14% of workers report using generative AI daily. Closing these deployment gaps requires the foundations that vanguard companies have already built.

For CEOs still searching for AI returns, the message is clear: stop chasing quick wins from isolated pilots and invest in the infrastructure, processes, governance, and culture that enable AI to deliver value at scale. The 12% of companies already achieving dual revenue and cost benefits from AI have proven the model works — the challenge for the remaining 88% is summoning the commitment and organizational discipline to follow their lead. Explore more AI strategy analyses through our interactive library collection.