CEOs Embrace Generative AI

Learn more about IBM

Nearly half of CEOs surveyed identify productivity as their highest business priority — up from sixth place in 2022, according to CEO decision-making in the age of AI, Act with intention, a study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value.

They recognize technology modernization is key to achieving their productivity goals, ranking it as second highest priority. Yet, CEOs can face key barriers as they race to modernize and adopt new technologies like generative AI.

The study found that three-quarters of CEO respondents believe that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI. However, executives are also weighing potential risks or barriers of the technology such as bias, ethics and security. More than half (57%) of CEOs surveyed are concerned about data security and 48% worry about bias or data accuracy.

There is also a disconnect between CEOs and their teams when it comes to AI readiness. Half (50%) of CEOs surveyed report they are already integrating generative AI into products and services, and 43% say they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions. Yet, just 29% of their executive teams agree they have the in-house expertise to adopt generative AI; only 30% of non-CEO senior executives surveyed say that their organization is ready to adopt generative AI responsibly.

"Generative AI can reduce the barriers to AI adoption and half of CEOs interviewed are actively exploring it to drive a new wave of productivity, efficiency and quality of service across industries," said Jesus Mantas, Global Managing Partner, IBM Consulting. "CEOs need to assess their company requirements around data privacy, intellectual property protection, security, algorithmic accountability and governance in order to plan their deployment of emerging use cases of generative AI at scale."

Additional findings include:

CEOs say productivity — and the driving technology — is a pressing priority

Almost half (48%) of CEOs surveyed pinpoint productivity as a top priority for their organization.

Technology modernization follows as their second highest priority (45%) but CEOs also indicate this is among their top challenges.

For the fourth consecutive year, CEOs surveyed say technology factors remain the top external force impacting their organization over the next three years.

CEOs increasingly look toward operational, technology and data leaders as strategic decision makers

When asked which C-Suite members will make the most crucial decisions over the next three years, CEO respondents identify COOs (62%) and CFOs (52%).

The influence of technology leaders on decision making is growing — 38% of surveyed CEOs point to CIOs (up from 19% a year ago), followed by Chief Technology or Chief Digital Officer (30%) as making the most crucial decisions in their organization.

CEOs are ready to adopt generative AI, but other executives have reservations

Three out of four (75%) CEOs surveyed believe the organization with the most advanced generative AI will have a competitive advantage.

Half (50%) of CEOs report they are already integrating generative AI into products and services; 43% say they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions, with 36% using the technology for operational decisions.

While 69% of CEO respondents see broad benefits of generative AI across their organization, just 29% of their executive teams agree they have the in-house expertise to adopt generative AI.

Only 30% of non-CEO senior executives surveyed say that their organization is ready to adopt generative AI responsibly.

Generative AI is fueling workforce changes

About 43% of surveyed CEOs say they have reduced or redeployed their workforce due to generative AI, with an additional 28% indicating they plan to do so in the next 12 months.

At the same time, 46% of CEOs surveyed have hired additional workers because of generative AI, with 26% saying they have plans for more hiring ahead.

Yet fewer than one in three CEOs (28%) surveyed have assessed the potential impact of generative AI on their workforces, and 36% say they plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Methodology: The IBM Institute for Business Value, in cooperation with Oxford Economics, interviewed 3,000 CEOs from over 30 countries and 24 industries as part of the 28th edition of the IBM C-Suite Study series. The IBM Institute for Business Value also conducted a survey of 200 CEOs in the United States on their responses to generative AI.

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CEOs Embrace Generative AI

Learn more about IBM

Nearly half of CEOs surveyed identify productivity as their highest business priority — up from sixth place in 2022, according to CEO decision-making in the age of AI, Act with intention, a study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value.

They recognize technology modernization is key to achieving their productivity goals, ranking it as second highest priority. Yet, CEOs can face key barriers as they race to modernize and adopt new technologies like generative AI.

The study found that three-quarters of CEO respondents believe that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI. However, executives are also weighing potential risks or barriers of the technology such as bias, ethics and security. More than half (57%) of CEOs surveyed are concerned about data security and 48% worry about bias or data accuracy.

There is also a disconnect between CEOs and their teams when it comes to AI readiness. Half (50%) of CEOs surveyed report they are already integrating generative AI into products and services, and 43% say they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions. Yet, just 29% of their executive teams agree they have the in-house expertise to adopt generative AI; only 30% of non-CEO senior executives surveyed say that their organization is ready to adopt generative AI responsibly.

"Generative AI can reduce the barriers to AI adoption and half of CEOs interviewed are actively exploring it to drive a new wave of productivity, efficiency and quality of service across industries," said Jesus Mantas, Global Managing Partner, IBM Consulting. "CEOs need to assess their company requirements around data privacy, intellectual property protection, security, algorithmic accountability and governance in order to plan their deployment of emerging use cases of generative AI at scale."

Additional findings include:

CEOs say productivity — and the driving technology — is a pressing priority

Almost half (48%) of CEOs surveyed pinpoint productivity as a top priority for their organization.

Technology modernization follows as their second highest priority (45%) but CEOs also indicate this is among their top challenges.

For the fourth consecutive year, CEOs surveyed say technology factors remain the top external force impacting their organization over the next three years.

CEOs increasingly look toward operational, technology and data leaders as strategic decision makers

When asked which C-Suite members will make the most crucial decisions over the next three years, CEO respondents identify COOs (62%) and CFOs (52%).

The influence of technology leaders on decision making is growing — 38% of surveyed CEOs point to CIOs (up from 19% a year ago), followed by Chief Technology or Chief Digital Officer (30%) as making the most crucial decisions in their organization.

CEOs are ready to adopt generative AI, but other executives have reservations

Three out of four (75%) CEOs surveyed believe the organization with the most advanced generative AI will have a competitive advantage.

Half (50%) of CEOs report they are already integrating generative AI into products and services; 43% say they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions, with 36% using the technology for operational decisions.

While 69% of CEO respondents see broad benefits of generative AI across their organization, just 29% of their executive teams agree they have the in-house expertise to adopt generative AI.

Only 30% of non-CEO senior executives surveyed say that their organization is ready to adopt generative AI responsibly.

Generative AI is fueling workforce changes

About 43% of surveyed CEOs say they have reduced or redeployed their workforce due to generative AI, with an additional 28% indicating they plan to do so in the next 12 months.

At the same time, 46% of CEOs surveyed have hired additional workers because of generative AI, with 26% saying they have plans for more hiring ahead.

Yet fewer than one in three CEOs (28%) surveyed have assessed the potential impact of generative AI on their workforces, and 36% say they plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Methodology: The IBM Institute for Business Value, in cooperation with Oxford Economics, interviewed 3,000 CEOs from over 30 countries and 24 industries as part of the 28th edition of the IBM C-Suite Study series. The IBM Institute for Business Value also conducted a survey of 200 CEOs in the United States on their responses to generative AI.

Related Links

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Closing the Gap in Modern Tech and the Tools Meant to Monitor Them

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...

MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Podcast - Episode 23: NetOps Labor Shortage

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Why FinOps Rewrote Its Mission and What It Signals for Technology Management

Technology management is evolving, and in turn, so is the scope of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation recently updated their mission statement from "advancing the people who manage the value of cloud" to "advancing the people who manage the value of technology." This seemingly small change solidifies a larger evolution: FinOps practitioners have organically expanded to be focused on more than just cloud cost optimization. Today, FinOps teams are largely — and quickly — expanding their job descriptions, evolving into a critical function for managing the full value of technology ...

Clearing the Path to AI: Why Vendor Consolidation Matters Now

Enterprises are under pressure to scale AI quickly. Yet despite considerable investment, adoption continues to stall. One of the most overlooked reasons is vendor sprawl ... In reality, no organization deliberately sets out to create sprawling vendor ecosystems. More often, complexity accumulates over time through well-intentioned initiatives, such as enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts, point solutions, or decentralized sourcing strategies ...

Cold Data, Hot Problem: Why AI Is Rewriting Enterprise Storage Strategy

Nearly every conversation about AI eventually circles back to compute. GPUs dominate the headlines while cloud platforms compete for workloads and model benchmarks drive investment decisions. But underneath that noise, a quieter infrastructure challenge is taking shape. The real bottleneck in enterprise AI is not processing power, it is the ability to store, manage and retrieve the relentless volumes of data that AI systems generate, consume and multiply ...

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The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...

Empowering the Human Side of the Autonomous IT Age

In the modern enterprise, the conversation around AI has moved past skepticism toward a stage of active adoption. According to our 2026 State of IT Trends Report: The Human Side of Autonomous AI, nearly 90% of IT professionals view AI as a net positive, and this optimism is well-founded. We are seeing agentic AI move beyond simple automation to actively streamlining complex data insights and eliminating the manual toil that has long hindered innovation. However, as we integrate these autonomous agents into our ecosystems, the fundamental DNA of the IT role is evolving ...

AI Scale Is Outpacing Infrastructure - and IT Leaders Are Running Out of Time

AI workloads require an enormous amount of computing power ... What's also becoming abundantly clear is just how quickly AI's computing needs are leading to enterprise systems failure. According to Cockroach Labs' State of AI Infrastructure 2026 report, enterprise systems are much closer to failure than their organizations realize. The report ... suggests AI scale could cause widespread failures in as little as one year — making it a clear risk for business performance and reliability.

No Escalations ≠ No Work: Why Visibility in DevOps Matters More Now That AI Is Accelerating Everything

The quietest week your engineering team has ever had might also be its best. No alarms going off. No escalations. No frantic Teams or Slack threads at 2 a.m. Everything humming along exactly as it should. And somewhere in a leadership meeting, someone looks at the metrics dashboard, sees a flat line of incidents and says: "Seems like things are pretty calm over there. Do we really need all those people?" ... I've spent many years in engineering, and this pattern keeps repeating ...