3 CEO imperatives for leading through a storm of change
Forward-thinking leaders are redefining success—building agile operating models, investing in AI, and turning disruption into strategic growth.
CEO Outlook report: Key findings and steps forward
Discover how today’s most resilient leaders are reshaping the future.
How are today's business leaders turning disruption into a competitive advantage?
The CEO’s role is being rewritten in real time. Leaders today aren’t just responding to volatility — they’re transforming disruption into a competitive edge. Disruption is no longer a surprise; it’s the constant shaping every conversation and decision.
Business leaders are channeling their confidence into decisive action — and nowhere more visible than in how they're investing in cybersecurity, compliance, and technology resilience. CEOs recognize that protecting business continuity and maintaining trust are as critical to performance as growth itself. Agility, creativity, and resilience have become the new leadership currencies. No matter the industry, every senior leader faces a shared imperative: designing operating models built for ongoing change, so their organizations can thrive amid uncertainty.
The 2025 KPMG CEO Outlook reveals how forward-thinking leaders are rewriting the rules of growth, risk, and innovation. The survey found that 86% of US CEOs are confident about the country’s growth prospects, and 84% are optimistic about their own organizations’ market advancement. Yet optimism alone isn’t sufficient—as 79% have already adjusted strategy in response to changing conditions, underscoring that agility is now the defining metric of sustainable business.
Here’s a glimpse of what every senior executive should be paying attention to right now.
The #1 challenge is cybersecurity. The response: increase investment in risk resilience.
As CEOs elevate cybersecurity, compliance, and digital resilience to the top of their strategic agendas, their broader approach to leadership is evolving just as quickly.
65%
of US CEOs are extremely concerned about fraud detection and prevention
52%
highlight identity theft and data privacy as major concerns and leadership priorities
45%
say vulnerability to cyberattacks is a key threat their organizations are addressing
How can forward-thinking leaders turn today's chaos into clarity and growth?
Three ways to turn turbulence into transformation
1. Pursue growth with eyes wide open
Today’s leaders are pursuing growth opportunities, but they are realistic about the hurdles to surmount. Specifically, 89% say tariffs will significantly affect business performance in the next three years, and 84% are concerned that at least one AI-native company will displace an incumbent in their industry.
For the most successful organizations, tariffs, cyber threats, and regulatory headwinds aren’t just risks to manage; they are proving grounds for innovation. Visionary leaders are using pressures such as these to reimagine supply chains, strengthen digital resilience, and spark competitive advantage.
In sum, volatility isn’t a cost to absorb—it’s the raw material for reinvention.
2. Make AI your defining bet
Artificial intelligence is no longer on the periphery of business. It’s in the center. Nearly every breakthrough innovation in the next three to five years will be shaped by AI adoption, which requires effective integration with the workforce and robust governance to ensure trust.
In fact, 74% of CEOs rank AI as a top investment priority despite economic uncertainty, and 69% plan to allocate 10-20% of their budgets to AI initiatives within the next year, with many boards approving double-digit increases. However, there is much room for improved strategy: only 13% feel “very confident” their organizations are ahead of the curve on AI adoption, while most admit they’re still catching up.
To capitalize on AI as the next growth engine, leaders need to commit resources to improving data quality and aligning with strategic partners that can help drive growth, while concurrently transforming the workforce and providing leadership from the top.
Agentic AI, in particular, is changing how work gets done, driving real-time decisioning, automating complexity, and compelling leaders to rethink entire operating models. Those who invest strategically, address foundational gaps, and align agentic AI to business strategy will capture exponential value. Those who don’t risk being outpaced by faster, smarter competitors.
3. Construct a hybrid AI-human workforce
The future of work will see humans and AI agents working side by side, offering organizations the best of both worlds: human creativity, judgment, and adaptability combined with the speed, precision, and scalability of AI. More than half (55%) of CEOs are concerned about the impact of AI on company culture, and 86% expect managers to oversee multiple AI agents as part of their roles in the year ahead.
Success will depend not just on technical integration, but on building trust between people and intelligent agents through intentional systems for governance, upskilling, and communication. In fact, as AI agents become core members of teams, the urgency to upskill employees and design robust systems to govern, manage, and develop these agents will be paramount. Leaders should double down not only on reskilling and retraining their workforce, but also on continuously refining and tooling generative and agentic AI tools.
The organizations best positioned to win will treat this shift not as a one-time adjustment, but as a living transformation, continually refining roles, skills, and operating models.
How are leaders redefining success amid growing complexity and change?
The demands leaders face is shifting at an unprecedented pace. Vision alone isn’t enough. Modern leadership requires the courage to move forward despite uncertainty, to pivot as global forces continue to evolve, and to use disruption as a springboard for growth. Long-term prosperity depends on weaving agility into every decision, every operating model, and every investment.
The CEO role is evolving and increasingly multi-dimensional as expectations become more expansive. But CEOs are leading with confidence, leaning into new skillsets and adaptability as they position their organizations for success in the years to come.
Tim Walsh
Chair and CEO, KPMG US
Prepare for change. Stay ahead of what’s next.
Disruption doesn’t mark a moment in time. It’s an ever-present reality. The edge will belong to leaders who intentionally prepare for change and are ready for opportunities to transform volatility into advantage. Whether you lead technology, compliance, cyber, finance, or strategy, one truth unites every member of the C-suite: adaptability has become the new measure of leadership.
Discover how today’s most resilient leaders are reshaping the future.
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