CEO Confidence Drops Amid AI, Cyber Risks

CEO confidence in revenue growth has fallen to its lowest level in five years, reflecting growing uncertainty over AI investments, geopolitical tensions, and cyber threats, according to PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey.

Only 30% of CEOs worldwide said they are confident about their companies’ revenue prospects for the next 12 months, down from 38% in 2025 and 56% in 2022. PwC says the results show that many organizations are still struggling to convert investments into sustained financial performance as they adapt to rapid technological and economic change. The survey gathered responses from 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries and territories between Sept. 30 and Nov. 10, 2025.

AI is emerging as a key dividing line between companies that are achieving financial gains and those that are not. Forty-two percent of CEOs said they are concerned about whether their organizations are transforming fast enough to keep pace with technological change, well ahead of other strategic concerns such as innovation capability or long-term viability.

“If AI is going to come of age, its builders, buyers and beneficiaries will need to confront the fundamentals they’ve conveniently ignored: data hygiene, governance, transparency, and, most taboo of all, real ROI,” writes Héctor Cobo, Regional Vice President Mexico, Caribbean, and Central America, SAS, on MBN.

While many companies are experimenting with AI, only 12% of CEOs reported that AI has delivered both cost and revenue benefits. Another 33% said they have seen gains in either cost or revenue, and 56% said they have not yet achieved any significant financial benefit.

​​ROI for AI, depending on implementation and use case, averages 42%, with payback in just one to two years, Capgemini reports. “The board, especially at publicly traded companies, is focused on operational spending. When it affects stock price, action follows,” says Daniel Zavalza, CTO, Capgemini.

According to a new global study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG),  there are three broad CEO approaches to AI adoption. A small group remains cautious, making limited early investments. The majority takes a value-driven approach, investing when risks are manageable and returns are clearer. A similar-sized group is moving more aggressively, using AI to drive broader transformation through faster investment, workforce retraining and confidence in long-term returns.

PwC’s data suggests that companies embedding AI across products, services, and decision-making are significantly more likely to report financial returns. CEOs who reported both cost and revenue benefits were two to three times more likely to have adopted AI widely in demand generation, product development, and strategic planning.

PwC says that companies with strong AI foundations, including responsible AI frameworks and integrated technology environments, are three times more likely to generate measurable returns. The firm’s separate analysis shows that companies applying AI broadly across products and customer experiences recorded profit margins nearly four percentage points higher than companies that did not.

2026 will be a decisive year for AI adoption, says Mohamed Kande, Global Chairman, PwC. He notes that a small group of companies are already translating AI into measurable financial results, while others remain in pilot stages, creating a widening gap in competitiveness.

“Too many companies treat AI purely as a technology deployment rather than as a business transformation,” writes Jordi Cluró, Partner, Bain & Company, in MBN, summarizing a pattern observed across industrial sectors. This mindset, he argues, has left most organizations running pilot programs without measurable impact, even as institutional expectations for technology-driven efficiency continue to rise.

External pressures are also weighing on CEO confidence. Twenty percent of CEOs said their organizations are highly exposed to the risk of financial loss from tariffs over the next year. That exposure varies by region, from 6% in the Middle East to 28% in the Chinese Mainland and 35% in Mexico. Among US CEOs, 22% reported high exposure.

Cyber risk has become another growing concern. Thirty-one percent of CEOs now consider it a major threat, up from 24% last year and 21% two years ago. In response, 84% said they plan to strengthen enterprise-wide cybersecurity as part of their broader risk management strategies.

“In the coming year, adversaries will level up with AI and we will witness the next wave of digital threats, redefining business risk and trust as we know it,”  explains Oscar Montes, Country Manager, Radware, on MBN.

Concerns about macroeconomic volatility, technology disruption and geopolitics have also increased slightly, while inflation concerns have edged down.

Despite these challenges, many CEOs are expanding into new industries and markets. Forty-two percent said their companies have entered new sectors over the past five years. Among CEOs planning acquisitions, 44% said they expect to invest outside their core industry, with technology viewed as the most attractive adjacent sector.

Fifty-one percent of CEOs said they plan to make international investments in the coming year. The United States remains the leading destination, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Chinese Mainland. Interest in India has nearly doubled year over year, with 13% of CEOs including it among their top three investment markets.

PwC’s findings also highlight execution gaps in corporate reinvention. Only one in four CEOs say their organizations tolerate high levels of risk in innovation, have formal processes to stop underperforming initiatives, or operate dedicated innovation or corporate venturing units.

Time allocation remains a challenge. CEOs say they spend 47% of their time addressing issues with a horizon of less than one year, compared with just 16% on decisions looking more than five years ahead.

Kande says that while companies may be inclined to slow down during periods of uncertainty, the pace of technological and economic change requires faster and more decisive action to capture value.

“2026 will be another year in which companies across all industries will accelerate their own transformation processes. In the last few years, AI dominated all conversations, but it is now evolving into real, tangible change,” says Diego Tártara, Global CTO, Globant. This change mandates that organizations establish clear guidelines, governance frameworks, and strategic adoption plans to ensure measurable impact, reports MBN.