Viewed in BCG
A recent survey from Boston Consulting Group offers a useful snapshot of how AI is evolving at the top of the org charts and how leadership posture is starting to diverge.
Signals shaping the market
AI investment is becoming structural
Spending is set to double, and ~94% of companies plan to continue even without immediate payoff. This is no longer experimental.
AI is now CEO-led
72% of CEOs say they are the main decision maker on AI. The shift from CIO to CEO ownership is clear.
AI is moving into the core of work
Agentic AI is expected to deliver measurable ROI and is starting to take on roles beyond simple automation.
Momentum is global, but not uniform
Some regions move from conviction, others from pressure. Both dynamics accelerate adoption.
Risk remains, but is better absorbed
Cybersecurity, control, and regulation are still top concerns, but less of a brake on investment.
Three CEO postures emerge
Followers
Exploring, cautious, waiting for clearer proof.
Pragmatists
Scaling selectively where value is visible.
Trailblazers
Investing ahead and transforming end-to-end.
Most organizations span all three, with differences largely coming down to speed.
What tends to separate faster movers
Earlier investment at scale, broader workforce upskilling, and deeper focus on a few use cases tend to separate faster movers.
Most companies sit in the pragmatic middle, while a smaller group is already reshaping how work is done. Increasingly, teams are reflecting on where they want to be on that spectrum over the next 12 months.
A sincere thank you to this exceptional group of authors: Christoph Schweizer (CEO), Jessica Apotheker, Sylvain Duranton, Vladimir Lukic, and Nicolas de Bellefonds (Managing Directors & Senior Partners).
