If 2022 was the year CEOs talked boldly about growth and transformation, 2026 is shaping up as the year many quietly recalibrate their expectations.
According to PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, confidence in near-term revenue growth has fallen to its lowest level in five years. Just 30% of CEOs now say they are confident about revenue growth over the next 12 months—down sharply from 38% in 2025 and 56% in 2022. The survey, based on responses from 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries and territories, paints a picture of leaders caught between ambition and execution, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence.
AI remains the dominant strategic narrative, but the numbers suggest a growing credibility gap. While nearly every CEO agrees AI will reshape their industry, only a small minority can point to consistent financial returns. Layer on geopolitical volatility, tariffs, and rising cyber threats, and it’s clear why optimism is fading.
This isn’t a crisis of belief in technology. It’s a crisis of conversion—turning investment into measurable growth.
AI: The Promise Is Clear, the Payoff Is Not
The most striking finding in PwC’s survey is how central AI has become to CEO anxiety. Forty-two percent of CEOs cite “transforming fast enough to keep up with technological change, including AI” as their top concern. That puts it well ahead of worries about innovation capability or even long-term business viability, both cited by 29%.
Yet for all the experimentation, results remain uneven. Only 12% of CEOs say AI has delivered both cost savings and revenue growth. Another 33% report gains in one or the other, while a majority—56%—say AI has produced no significant financial benefit so far.
Those numbers help explain the confidence slump. Boards and investors were willing to tolerate experimentation when capital was cheap and expectations were high. In a tighter, more volatile environment, patience is thinning.
PwC’s data reveals a widening gap between companies dabbling in AI and those deploying it at scale. CEOs who report both cost and revenue gains are two to three times more likely to say AI is embedded deeply across products, services, demand generation, and strategic decision-making. In other words, success correlates less with trying AI and more with reorganizing around it.
Foundations, Not Just Scale, Separate Winners From Laggards
Scale alone isn’t enough. PwC points to another critical differentiator: AI foundations.
CEOs whose organizations have put in place Responsible AI frameworks, integrated data platforms, and architectures that support enterprise-wide deployment are three times more likely to report meaningful financial returns. Separate PwC analysis reinforces this, showing that companies applying AI broadly to products, services, and customer experiences achieved nearly four percentage points higher profit margins than peers that did not.
This aligns with what many CIOs have discovered the hard way. AI pilots are relatively easy; industrializing AI is not. Without governance, data quality, and integration, AI initiatives stall—or worse, create risk without reward.
PwC Global Chairman Mohamed Kande summed up the moment bluntly:
“2026 is shaping up as a decisive year for AI. A small group of companies are already turning AI into measurable financial returns, while many others are still struggling to move beyond pilots. That gap is starting to show up in confidence and competitiveness—and it will widen quickly for those that don’t act.”
The implication is uncomfortable but clear. AI is no longer a future differentiator; it’s becoming a present dividing line.
Confidence Erodes Under Geopolitical and Cyber Pressure
AI execution challenges are only part of the story. CEO confidence is also being squeezed by external risks that feel increasingly unpredictable—and increasingly costly.
Tariffs are back near the top of the agenda. One in five CEOs globally (20%) say their organization is highly or extremely exposed to the risk of significant financial loss from tariffs over the next 12 months. Exposure varies sharply by region, from just 6% in the Middle East to 28% in the Chinese Mainland and 35% in Mexico. Among U.S. CEOs, 22% report high exposure.
The numbers reflect a world where trade policy is once again a strategic variable, not a background assumption. For global companies, supply chains designed for efficiency are being stress-tested for resilience—and sometimes redesigned entirely.
At the same time, cyber risk is climbing fast up the threat list. Thirty-one percent of CEOs now cite it as a major threat, up from 24% last year and 21% two years ago. Identity attacks, ransomware, and geopolitical cyber activity are no longer theoretical risks; they’re operational realities.
In response, 84% of CEOs say they plan to strengthen enterprise-wide cybersecurity as part of their response to geopolitical risk. That figure underscores how closely cyber resilience is now tied to national, economic, and operational security.
Other concerns are also ticking upward. Macroeconomic volatility (31%), technology disruption (24%), and geopolitics (23%) all register higher than last year. Inflation, interestingly, has eased slightly as a concern, slipping from 27% to 25%, suggesting CEOs may be adjusting to a “higher-for-longer” baseline rather than expecting rapid relief.
Reinvention Is the Strategy—Execution Is the Problem
Despite the gloom, CEOs aren’t retreating into defensive crouches. If anything, the survey suggests they recognize reinvention as unavoidable.
More than four in ten CEOs (42%) say their company has begun competing in new sectors over the past five years. Among those planning major acquisitions, 44% expect to invest outside their current industry, with technology emerging as the most attractive adjacent sector.
This appetite for reinvention reflects a belief that organic growth alone may not be enough in slower, more fragmented markets. Diversification, adjacency plays, and ecosystem expansion are increasingly part of the CEO playbook.
International investment plans reinforce that view. Fifty-one percent of CEOs plan to make international investments in the year ahead. The United States remains the top destination, with 35% ranking it among their top three markets. The United Kingdom and Germany (both 13%) and the Chinese Mainland (11%) also rank highly.
One of the most notable shifts is India, where interest has nearly doubled year-on-year. Thirteen percent of CEOs planning international investment now place India among their top three destinations, reflecting its growing role as both a market and an innovation hub.
Yet ambition continues to outpace execution. Only one in four CEOs say their organization tolerates high risk in innovation projects, has disciplined processes to stop underperforming initiatives, or operates a defined innovation center or corporate venturing function.
In other words, many companies want to reinvent—but lack the operating muscle to do it efficiently.
The Time Horizon Problem
Perhaps the most revealing statistic in the survey isn’t about AI or geopolitics at all—it’s about time.
CEOs report spending 47% of their time focused on issues with a horizon of less than one year, compared with just 16% on decisions looking more than five years ahead. The remainder falls somewhere in between.
This imbalance helps explain why long-term transformations struggle. When leaders are consumed by near-term pressures—earnings, disruptions, regulatory changes—it becomes harder to sustain focus on foundational capabilities like AI platforms, data modernization, or new operating models.
The risk, as PwC suggests, is that short-term caution becomes long-term vulnerability.
Mohamed Kande puts it plainly:
“In periods of rapid change, the instinct to slow down is understandable—but it’s also risky. The value at stake across the global economy is increasing, and the window to capture it is narrowing.”
A Confidence Gap With Real Consequences
Taken together, PwC’s findings point to a widening confidence gap. A relatively small group of companies is translating AI and reinvention into tangible results. A much larger group is investing, experimenting, and talking—but not yet converting.
That gap matters. Confidence influences hiring, capital allocation, M&A appetite, and risk tolerance. As confidence erodes, so does the willingness to make bold bets—precisely when boldness may be required.
The irony is that the tools CEOs believe are essential to future growth—AI, digital platforms, global reach—are the same ones exposing execution weaknesses. The technology is ready. The organizations often are not.
The Year That Forces Choices
If there’s a single theme running through the survey, it’s that 2026 is a forcing function. AI pilots must become platforms. Cybersecurity must become systemic. Reinvention must move from strategy decks into operating models.
CEO confidence may be low, but clarity is high. The question isn’t whether AI, geopolitical risk, or cyber threats will shape the next decade. It’s whether companies can move fast enough—structurally, not just rhetorically—to stay competitive.
For business leaders, the message from PwC’s data is sobering but actionable: confidence won’t return on its own. It has to be earned, through execution.
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