C-suite sours on AI despite rising investment, survey finds
- Reference: 1752045972
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/09/csuite_sours_on_ai/
- Source link:
The firm, a subsidiary of Swiss staffing biz Adecco Group, analyzed the responses from 500 global chief technology officers (CTOs) among a broader set of 2,000 global executives [1]whom its corporate parent surveyed about AI trends.
The resulting [2]report , "What CTOs Think: Using Digital Transformation to Scale Skills and Unlock Enterprise Potential," finds that despite growing enterprise AI commitment, suits doubt their corporate AI strategies.
[3]
"Confidence in corporate AI strategy among C-suite leaders has dropped 11 percentage points in the past year – down to 58 percent in 2025 from 69 percent in 2024,” the report states.
AI and soft skills are two sides of the same coin
That's the average across the executive suite – CEO, CTO, plus the chiefs of finance, operations, and human resources. Among CEOs and CTOs, the confidence decline is even more pronounced.
The percentage of CEOs who are "very confident in their company’s AI implementation strategy" declined from 82 percent in 2024 to 49 percent in 2025. Among CTOs, 82 percent were very confident in 2024, dropping to 62 percent in 2025.
[4]
[5]
"The declining confidence of CEOs and CTOs – who typically focus on long-term vision, innovation, and competitive positioning – may reflect disappointing outcomes from previous attempts at digital or AI initiatives, delays or failures in implementation as well as concerns around scalability," the report says.
[6]Georgia court throws out earlier ruling that relied on fake cases made up by AI
[7]Game, set, botch: AI umpiring at Wimbledon goes long
[8]AI models just don't understand what they're talking about
[9]Scholars sneaking phrases into papers to fool AI reviewers
At the same time, chief human resource officers and chief operating officers (COOs) have become more confident in corporate AI projects. Their confidence self-assessments have risen from 53 percent in 2024 to 63 percent in 2025 for HR bosses, and 54 percent to 58 percent for COOs during the same period.
The report suggests these execs pay closer attention to internal execution, workforce readiness, and process optimization, and see cause for optimism about AI based on demonstrable internal progress.
Creeping doubt about AI may also reflect concern about lack of technical acumen among C-suite colleagues. According to the Akkodis report: "Only 55 percent of CTOs believe their executive teams have sufficient AI fluency to fully grasp both the risks and the opportunities."
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CTOs, perhaps unsurprisingly given their technical focus, were more apt to report that they'd taken steps to improve their AI knowledge in the past 12 months than their C-suite peers (64 percent compared to 58 percent).
There's enough AI doubt to go around. When IT consultancy Gartner surveyed CEOs about AI recently, it [11]found that only 44 percent of CEOs had confidence that their CIOs were AI-savvy.
The report links AI doubt to scarcity of talent – a convenient conclusion for a firm that offers consulting services. "Despite accelerating investments in AI, organizations are confronting a widening skills gap – one that threatens to stall transformation efforts before they can deliver impact," the report says.
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Interestingly, the talent gap cited is less about absent AI skills than human skills – the need for creativity, innovation, leadership, and critical thinking among staff to find beneficial ways to apply AI.
"AI and soft skills are two sides of the same coin," said Cristopher Kuehl, VP of AI and data science at Akkodis, in the report. "The most successful organizations invest in both – using AI to handle tasks, while relying on human qualities like leadership, empathy, and purpose to guide ethical, customer-focused decisions. Developing these traits alongside AI fluency ensures technology is embraced not just efficiently, but meaningfully." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.adeccogroup.com/business-leaders-research-2025
[2] https://tech.akkodis.com/what-ctos-think
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aG49t-fv4Vt4M14MboPrlgAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aG49t-fv4Vt4M14MboPrlgAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aG49t-fv4Vt4M14MboPrlgAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/georgia_appeals_court_ai_caselaw/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/07/ai_wimbledon_fail/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/ai_models_potemkin_understanding/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/07/scholars_try_to_fool_llm_reviewers/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aG49t-fv4Vt4M14MboPrlgAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-05-06-gartner-survey-reveals-that-ceos-believe-their-executive-teams-lack-ai-savviness
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aG49t-fv4Vt4M14MboPrlgAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: What CTOs Think
I echo your point A/C.
What may be possible with "AI" and what is possible with "AI" are two vastly different points.
I have commented on a similar thread on another channel where the original poster was lamenting why aren't businesses taking up AI.
My response to that was along the lines of what is it that people are supposed to take up exactly. There are no significant actual AI tools out there IMHO.
I thought the main selling poiint of AI was that companies could use it to replace expensive staff capable of creativity, innovation and critical thinking.
Sneaky!
Survey CTOs, instead of the ones forever pushing the shit barrow, CEOs.
Re: Sneaky!
Indeed.
Ask at the coal face, if you can say that of a CTO.
"despite rising investment"
Yeah, well it looks like we have finally arrived at the [1]Peak of Inflated Expectations .
Whew ! Now it's off to the Trough of Disillusionment, then we can finally find a proper place for this statistical analysis machine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle
"The declining confidence of CEOs and CTOs – who typically focus on long-term vision, innovation, and competitive positioning... "
I was with them up until that sentence... Since when has any CEO been concerned about anything except the next Quarter's profit margin and the current Share Price... Long term vision? Well I guess them, collecting their golden parachute, whilst sipping champagne from their super yacht, counts as a long term vision, no?
The vast majority of CEO's don't own super yachts.
Scarcity of talent
> talent gap cited is less about absent AI skills
As there is more than enough information available about these systems: from the opportunity for all staff to try them out for free online, up to books, courses and coding examples to let the more technically inclined really dig in and see what is going on (Hugging Face is calling out to you and there are GPUs aplenty to rent by the minute).
> than human skills – the need for creativity, innovation, leadership, and critical thinking among staff to find beneficial ways to apply AI.
The critical thinking is probably what is getting in the way - you've foolishly let your staff gain all the AI skills and now they are critically comparing benefits to costs.
But never fear, as TFA points out, there are still consultancies who will bring in unbiased - i.e, totally ignorant about your company and products - people who are self-proclaimed "(thought) leaders" and "Creatives (with no other qualifiers, just randomly creative?)" to help find innovative ways of shoe-horning the machines into cracks in your processes[1]. Consultancies that are desperate to paint the growing loss of faith as a failure in your staff rather than common sense.
[1] looking for a spiffy short phrase to describe the results of doing this - "Process Spalling"? It needs more alliteration. You know the effect - someone shoves their pet hobby horse into a small gap in the flowchart and for a short time it expands, using up resources, then they get bored, it shrinks down, the gap reopens, then either the budget has to be used or it'll be cut at year end, so the hobby gets fed again - or someone else shoves The Latest Thing into the gap. Rinse and repeat, until one day the whole side of the process graph is undermined and falls off. To the shock and surprise of everyone whose work is usually totally unconnected with horses, hobby or otherwise, who now find they have been relying on this mess without realising it and are suddenly aware of all the equine byproducts that need to be cleared away.
Not so keen to sleep the AI bed they have made for themselves?
Looking at the AI delusional ordering of C suite cockroaches as mentioned in the article from most to less deluded:
CHRO > COO > CEO » CTO
I can imagine the CTO can envisage the replies of the more skilled staff that he or she has been forced to retrench from their reports as a consequence of a corporate AI wet dream mandate, when any future attempt is made to recruit them or similarly ill-used candidates from elsewhere. In polite language the inquirer will receive precise directions to the local knocking shop.
Given HR is pretty much in cloud cuckoo land to begin with, the Chief HR Officer is likely on twice the dose of the dried frog pills that the CFO is prescribed.
Who can recall when large organisations would parade their "Employer of Choice" awards at every opportunity ?
Quite the antithesis of Employer of AI. No employees (possibly no customers too.)
What CTOs Think
It's navigating that narrow boundary between thought and fantasy that's the problem.