January 21, 2025 — International administration consulting partnership Kearney, and Futurum, a analysis, intelligence and advisory agency, immediately collectively introduced the discharge of the 2025 CEO AI Administration examine.The examine examined management’s stance and standing of organizational AI adoption, implementation and roadmaps – revealing alarming backlash results that CEOs could already expertise.
The examine is predicated on surveys and sit-down interview periods with CEOs of corporations with annual income over $1 billion around the globe. The findings tackle CEO readiness in notion vs actuality, CEOs’ views on the potential of AI, the administration dynamics over domain-level experience and insightful conclusions on administration of AI roadmaps and decision-making processes.
Heading into 2025, taking part CEOs agreed to handle at present debated points like AI governance and moral concerns, the appearance of Agentic AI, change administration and workforce dilemmas pertaining to AI adoption.
In contrast to any earlier technological innovation, AI units cross-industry challenges that transcend the technological customary integration journey. The examine discovered that profitable corporations adopting AI discovered it essential to launch important change-management plans and initiatives. In line with the examine, corporations level to constructing cross-functional alignment (62%) and adjusting workflows and processes (63%) as their main hurdles when integrating AI into each day operations. Past cultural resistance, sensible challenges like integrating with current tech stacks (32%) or navigating IP and licensing complexities (24%) usually delay or derail promising initiatives.
Moreover, distinct variations between older established corporations and youthful digital native corporations had been unearthed within the examine. Digital native firm CEOs usually describe a fast-follower mindset—working light-weight pilots to validate AI options and investing closely in analytics-savvy hires. Against this, established organizations usually tend to emphasize “sustained viability” (45% vs. 27% for digital native corporations) and stronger inside alignment (38% vs. 25%), reflecting a longer-term lens that features TCO concerns and historic knowledge migrations.
Probably the most telling insights was the early shortcomings of AI implementation amongst corporations, the place the efforts had been particularly spearheaded by the C suite. Knowledge reveals that 92% of CEOs not seeing tangible AI outcomes insist on main AI technique themselves, in comparison with solely 59% in organizations reaching measurable success. This hole means that centralized, top-down management can hamper domain-level experience and hinder cross-functional collaboration—each crucial enablers of sustainable AI. Interviews additional reveal that when the CEO stays a strategic information reasonably than a hands-on supervisor, useful resource allocation and ROI measurement (49% vs. 17% amongst unsuccessful friends) turn into extra successfully embedded in on a regular basis enterprise practices.
In conclusion and primarily based on the wealthy insights disclosed by the CEO responses and participation, Futurum and Kearney managed to develop a considerable CEO playbook for AI which options 5 factors that result in breakthroughs in AI outcomes.
Some key findings from the examine:
- CEOs are overconfident and masks organizational under-confidence: Though 78% of CEOs strongly imagine of their skill to information AI, solely 28% of mid-level managers share this optimism about their agency’s general readiness. This mismatch factors to a hidden cultural hurdle: Prime-down enthusiasm for AI can overlook lingering anxieties about job safety, ability gaps, or inadequate governance on the operational degree.
- Established organizations see marathon, not dash in AI: In comparison with the digital native corporations, established enterprises place heavier emphasis on bettering buyer satisfaction (76%) and shoring up provide chain resilience (42%) when deploying AI. As well as, 71% weigh whole price of possession over mere upfront spend—underscoring a multi-year view of AI investments.
- The rising vs established divide: Digital native firm CEOs usually described a fast-follower mindset—working light-weight pilots to validate AI options and investing closely in analytics-savvy hires. Against this, established organizations usually tend to emphasize “sustained viability” (45% vs. 27% for digital native corporations) and stronger inside alignment (38% vs. 25%), reflecting a longer-term lens that features TCO concerns and historic knowledge migrations.
- AI “patch paradox”: solely 19% of CEOs say they actively place AI for transformative development reasonably than near-term positive factors. Whereas most leaders see AI as a game-changer for operational efficiencies or price discount, few have absolutely mapped out the best way to leverage superior capabilities for higher-impact use instances. That hole partially explains why industries like Vitality, Manufacturing, and Know-how report the best charges of AI success—every nearing or exceeding 60%—as they combine AI into complicated workflows extra readily corresponding to predictive upkeep and automatic high quality checks.
- Tender demand by prospects: Many CEOs report minimal direct strain from prospects to undertake AI—solely 24% cite express consumer requests for AI-based options—but over half acknowledge feeling a robust inside crucial to arrange for AI-driven disruption. Leaders burdened that ready for exterior calls for may go away their organizations behind the curve as soon as shopper expectations shift, which they broadly anticipated them to do quickly. Consequently, regardless of buyer silence, 59% of corporations say they’re actively investing in “foundational” AI pilots to construct up knowledge readiness and upskill groups, aiming to be ready when market pressures inevitably rise.
- Strategic alignment: A placing 64% of leaders with no formal AI roadmap report minimal returns from their preliminary pilots, underscoring the necessity to tightly anchor AI efforts to core enterprise aims.
- Knowledge readiness and integration: Practically two-thirds of CEOs cite disconnected or low-quality knowledge as the primary barrier stopping AI options from scaling past pilot phases, underscoring how crucial strong knowledge readiness is to any AI initiative. Siloed infrastructures, fragmented expertise stacks, and inconsistent governance all restrict AI’s capability to ship significant insights.
- Change administration: Regardless of solely 39% of high-performing AI adopters citing devoted change administration frameworks as a key success issue, leaders who make investments on this space see smoother rollouts and stronger adoption.
- Efficient AI governance: Solely 22% of organizations with AI governance councils constantly monitor bias detection metrics, signaling that oversight continues to be evolving. Whereas many corporations depend on current committees or compliance groups, formal governance frameworks—full with cross-functional councils—show more proficient at curbing dangers like bias, regulatory pitfalls, and moral missteps.
- The Expertise equation: Regardless of lively recruitment efforts, 57% of surveyed corporations nonetheless lack adequate inside experience to satisfy present AI wants.
This examine is predicated on a mixture of quantitative survey knowledge and qualitative insights from in-depth CEO interviews, providing a complete view of how enterprise leaders are navigating AI adoption. The twin method ensures each breadth and depth, capturing overarching developments whereas delving into nuanced management views that carry the info to life.
The survey element of this analysis included 213 CEOs from organizations with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion. Respondents had been screened to make sure they held important management roles, corresponding to regional or international CEO positions, reflecting a strategic degree of decision-making authority. The survey lined a variety of industries, together with monetary companies, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare, and was designed to discover AI adoption throughout varied useful areas and challenges. Latin America, and different areas had been included to supply a worldwide perspective. The survey employed a structured questionnaire with Likert-scale, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions, producing statistically important knowledge throughout key themes.
Complementing the survey, 20 CEOs participated in in-depth interviews performed throughout November and December 2024. These 30-minute interviews supplied a chance to discover particular person experiences, challenges, and methods in higher element. The interviews had been structured round core themes corresponding to AI governance, change administration, integration challenges, and expertise acquisition. Insights from these discussions had been qualitatively analyzed to uncover rising patterns, particular examples, and distinctive views that enriched the broader survey findings.
By combining the quantitative scale of the survey with the qualitative richness of CEO interviews, this examine offers a balanced and actionable evaluation of how leaders are approaching AI. The methodology ensures that the outcomes are each statistically strong and contextually grounded, providing invaluable insights for organizations navigating AI’s complicated and transformative panorama.
