Successful CEOs Seek Innovation During Uncertain Times, PWC Survey Finds
Are CEOs striking the right balance between current challenges and future opportunities? CEOs say they spend 47 percent of their time on issues with time horizons of less than one year, compared to 16 percent dedicated to activities with a horizon of more than five years, according to PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey: Leading Through Uncertainty in the Age of AI.
The survey factored in responses from 4,454 chief executives across 95 countries and territories to get a clear picture of the challenges CEOs are facing and how they feel about the short- and long-term outlook for their organizations.
PwC found that CEOs are significantly less confident about short-term growth at their companies and they are more worried about a range of threats, including macroeconomic volatility, cyber risk, and geopolitical conflicts. But CEOs who refocus on innovation, agility, and unconventional opportunities find themselves pulling ahead of the pack.
Recalibrating in the Face of Greater Threats
Leaders are much less confident about their company’s revenue growth outlook in 2026 than in 2025. Although CEOs are generally optimistic about growth prospects in the global economy, local economic outlooks, industry-specific downturns, and increased threats are cooling their enthusiasm.
Almost a third (31 percent) of CEOs said their company is highly or extremely exposed to the risk of a significant financial loss from cyber threats in the next 12 months, up from 24 percent last year. Cyber issues now rank alongside macroeconomic volatility in CEOs’ list of top threats. More than 80 percent of CEOs said they are planning to improve enterprise-wide cybersecurity practices in response to geopolitical risk, as well.
CEOs are also notably concerned about the effect tariffs will have on their businesses and supply chains, with CEOs in Turkey and Mexico among the most concerned (30 to 35 percent of CEOs saying their company is highly or extremely exposed to significant financial loss from tariffs). Almost a third of CEOs said tariffs will reduce their company’s net profit margin in the year ahead, and another third said geopolitical uncertainty is making CEOs less likely to make large new investments.
PwC recommended that CEOs recalibrate their concerns to account for constant uncertainty.
“The question facing CEOs is how to avoid becoming frozen in a world where dynamism pays,” the report said. “Data from this year’s survey shows that companies planning to make major acquisitions and other large investments—despite the uncertain environment—are growing faster and enjoying higher profit margins.”
What’s the ROI on AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) took over many boardroom discussions in the last few years, and organizations are grappling with when to implement it, where it conflicts with organizational or ethical values, and how to overcome employee or stakeholder resistance.
When asked to pick a question that concerns them most today, CEOs overwhelmingly chose: “Are we transforming our business fast enough to keep up with technology, including AI?”
Yet only 30 percent of CEOs said their company has realized tangible results from AI adoption in the last 12 months through additional revenues. Cost-wise, 26 percent said costs have decreased due to AI, and 22 percent said costs increased.
Only 12 percent said they have seen both costs go down and revenue go up because of AI use, PwC reported. But those companies have applied AI more expansively across different business areas—44 percent applied AI to their products, services, and experiences, compared to 17 percent for other companies that haven’t realized that level of ROI.
Trust Matters
Two-thirds of CEOs (66 percent) said their company experienced trust concerns to at least a moderate extent last year on topics such as AI safety, data privacy, transparency, and the effect of climate change on business performance.
PwC found that companies experiencing the fewest trust concerns delivered total shareholder concerns over a 12-month period that were, on average, 9 percentage points higher than those experiencing the most trust concerns.
“Although it’s impossible to fully inoculate a company against losses of stakeholder trust, many CEOs could do more to anticipate and proactively address potential areas of vulnerability,” the report said. “As our analysis demonstrates, trust isn’t an intangible soft topic. Value is at stake. This means trust should be prioritized as a boardroom topic and considered across three interlocking dimensions: 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 organizations to use digital tools responsibly and ethically).”
Searching for Growth
Technology. Climate change. Geopolitics. AI. These megatrends combine to create new customer needs, new business models, and blurred lines between industries. CEOs are increasingly looking across sector and industry boundaries to find growth opportunities.
“Asked about which other sectors they’re looking to for growth—whether organically or through acquisitions—the top pick among CEOs globally is technology,” the survey said. “Technology CEOs, in turn, are seeking to grow in healthcare, business services, and banking and capital markets. The last of these reflects continued expansion by financial technology firms into banking and payments, as well as efforts by large technology players to partner with or disrupt incumbent financial institutions.”
Data from this year’s CEO survey found a strong connection between higher revenue coming from new sectors, bigger profit margins, and greater CEO confidence in company growth prospects. Companies that seize the moment and actively seek opportunities to acquire complementary capabilities outside their traditional lane are more likely to succeed today.
