Today's C-suite: AI focal point
While the enthusiasm for AI is still over the top, business leaders are tamping down their expectations of it. CEOs, for one, are far less likely than a year ago to see AI as a growth engine. But yet, they continue to have high expectations for the year ahead.
That’s the word from a new study of CEO attitudes published by the IBM Institute for Business Value, which finds that while 49% of top executives expected advanced AI – then defined as generative AI – to be driving business growth within a two-year period. This year, that number – now applied to agentic AI – dropped to 10%.
Still, they see rapid progress on the horizon, with 74% expecting agentic AI to be delivering accelerated business growth by 2030. The IBM study is based on a survey of 2,000 CEOs from 33 geographies and 21 industries between February and April 2026, along with qualitative discussions.
The value of AI is shrouded in mystery. Only 24% of business leaders admit they know how that value will come about. But they need to get much more involved than they have been when it comes to getting everyone on board with AI and steering it in the right direction.
