• 76% of organizations surveyed now have a chief AI officer, up from 26% a year ago.
• 59% of CEO respondents say the CHRO’s influence will increase in the coming years
• Nearly two-thirds of CEOs surveyed are reluctant to use AI to support key strategic decisions
May 4, 2026
Armonk, New York May 4, 2026 – A new global study from the IBM (NYSE: IBM) Institute for Business Value finds that the acceleration of AI is forcing CEOs to redesign how they structure their executive roles to further drive business impact across the enterprise.
In the preface of the study, IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn “The CEO’s role is always to navigate through disruption. What AI changes is the speed and results of leadership. Successful companies will operate AI not as a layer of technology, but as a new operating model. Decision-making cycles will be shortened and boundaries between functions will disappear. Companies that can learn, adapt, and execute faster than their competitors will have an advantage.”
According to the annual IBM CEO Study*, which surveyed 2,000 CEOs around the world, as AI becomes more pervasive within companies, CEOs are under increasing pressure to rethink how they run their executives, make decisions, and structure their organizations.
Key findings include:
- By 2026, 76% of organizations surveyed will have a Chief AI Officer (CAIO), up from just 26% in 2025.
- Our analysis shows that organizations that take an AI-first approach to executive design grow 10% more AI initiatives across the enterprise than their peers.
- 64% of CEOs surveyed said they would be comfortable making key strategic decisions based on AI-generated input.
- 83% of respondents agree that AI sovereignty is essential to business strategy, highlighting the importance of proper governance as AI plays a larger role across the enterprise.
- CEOs surveyed said that only 25% of employees regularly use AI as part of their job, even though 86% believe their employees have the skills to work with AI.
“AI is changing the way we work, connecting people and software in new ways, and changing the way people come together in the workplace,” he said. Mohammad Ali, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. “CEOs who are seeing real results from their AI transformations are not only accelerating AI adoption, but also redesigning their organizations to bring together the best talent and the best technology.”
New challenges require different types of leadership
- 85% of respondents say all department leaders need to become technology experts in their field, demonstrating that AI responsibilities are expanding beyond specialized roles.
- In organizations implementing CAIO, all CEOs surveyed expect their role to become more influential by 2030, as well as their influence on the entire C-suite.
- 59% of CEOs surveyed said the CHRO’s influence will increase in the coming years.
Governance and management become more important as CEOs move to AI-driven decision-making
- By 2030, CEOs surveyed expect that 48% of business decisions with codified consistency and guardrails will be made by AI without human intervention (compared to 25% today).
- 79% of executives surveyed acknowledged that AI is decentralizing decision-making and distributing accountability as it plays a more important role across the enterprise.
Organizations are betting on talent to drive AI success
- 83% of CEOs surveyed say AI success will depend more on people adoption than technology.
- Between 2026 and 2028, respondents expect that 29% of employees will need to reskill for another role and 53% will need to upskill to perform more effectively in their current role.
- Organizations surveyed that redesigned five core business areas: technology, finance, human resources, operations, and cross-functional collaboration were four times more likely to achieve their business goals.
- 77% of respondents said that talent and technology leadership roles are merging, suggesting that talent, technology and corporate strategy are becoming more closely integrated.
To view the entire study, visit https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/c-suite-study/ceo.
The study also provides industry perspectives from senior executives on how business leaders are responding to AI-driven change. Some of these first-hand opinions are available in the addendum below.
*Research method
IBM Institute for Business Value, in collaboration with Oxford Economics, surveyed 2,000 CEOs and similar senior leaders across 33 regions and 21 industries from February to April 2026. The study examined how leaders are redesigning business models, operating structures, and execution capabilities in an AI-driven economy, with additional analysis examining how organizations translate their AI ambitions into enterprise-wide execution and business value.
IBM’s thought leadership think tank, the IBM Institute for Business Value, combines global research and performance data with the expertise of industry thinkers and leading academics to deliver insights that make business leaders smarter. To learn more about world-class thought leadership, visit www.ibm.com/ibv. For more information, subscribe to the IdeaWatch newsletter: https://ibm.co/ibv-ideawatch.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries leverage insights from data to streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of government agencies and enterprises in critical infrastructure sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to execute digital transformation quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting provide open and flexible options for our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, accountability, inclusion, and service. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com.
Media contact:
Marisa Conway
IBM Corporate Communications
conwaym@us.ibm.com
