Despite persistent inflation, escalating geopolitical tensions and the rapid advance of AI, CEOs are not pulling back. Instead, they are redefining what growth means in a world where volatility is no longer cyclical, but structural.

New insights from PwC’s latest ‘Global CEO Survey’, alongside fresh findings from the 2026 ‘CEO Institute Survey’ report across Australia and New Zealand, reveal a leadership cohort navigating uncertainty with cautious confidence – balancing ambition with restraint and opportunity with risk.

Together, the research paints a clear picture: the CEO role is undergoing a reset, shaped by geopolitics, technology disruption and a more complex global operating environment.

Global confidence softens, but ambition remains

Drawing on responses from thousands of CEOs across nearly 100 countries, PwC’s ‘Global CEO Survey’ shows confidence in near-term revenue growth has weakened materially. Fewer leaders are optimistic about the next 12 months than at any point in recent years, reflecting sustained pressure from inflation, capital constraints and geopolitical instability.

Yet this softening confidence has not translated into retreat. Instead, CEOs are shifting their focus from headline growth to resilience, adaptability and long-term value creation. Many are spending more time managing near-term risks, even as they acknowledge the danger of underinvesting in the future.

This global recalibration mirrors sentiment in Australia and New Zealand, where CEOs describe themselves as optimistic: conscious of the risks ahead, but unwilling to stand still.

The CEO Institute survey highlights how leaders are contending with multiple, overlapping pressures, rather than a single dominant threat.

Inflation remains the most pressing concern across the region, particularly in New Zealand, while slowing consumer demand is weighing heavily on revenue expectations. Technology disruption, driven by AI, automation and cyber risk, has emerged as a top-tier challenge, alongside labor shortages and regulatory change.

Overlaying these domestic pressures is growing global instability. Around one in 10 CEOs in Australia and New Zealand now cites geopolitics as the external issue most likely to affect business performance – a figure that understates its broader influence across supply chains, investment decisions and risk planning.

Globally, PwC’s research reinforces this complexity. CEOs increasingly view economic volatility, geopolitical conflict, cyber threats and climate transition as interconnected forces, demanding more sophisticated, scenario-based decision-making.

Geopolitics moves from abstract risk to operational reality

One of the strongest points of alignment between global and regional data is the elevation of geopolitics from background concern to boardroom priority.

In Australia and New Zealand, almost six in 10 CEOs say they are more concerned about geopolitically driven trade disruption than they were a year ago. Shifts in United States trade policy, global commodity volatility and regional tensions are now shaping decisions around sourcing, market exposure and investment.

PwC’s global findings echo this sentiment, with CEOs increasingly factoring geopolitical alignment, trade resilience and regulatory divergence into growth strategies.

Yet despite heightened awareness, structural change remains limited. Only a small minority of CEOs in Australia and New Zealand report making significant adjustments to supply chains or operating models in response to geopolitical risk – a pattern reflected globally.

Rather than complacency, this appears to reflect the cost, complexity and inertia of change. Many organizations are still working through how to translate geopolitical awareness into practical action.

Supply chains have become a litmus test for this new leadership mindset. Once optimized almost exclusively for cost and efficiency, they are now being reassessed through the lens of resilience. Boards are asking harder questions about concentration risk, alternative suppliers and regional exposure.

However, action is incremental. While some organizations are experimenting with dual sourcing, near-shoring or modest inventory buffers, most have not yet altered their structural footprint. Legacy contracts, capital constraints and margin pressure continue to slow transformation.

The implication for CEOs globally is clear: resilience now carries a price tag and leaders must decide how much efficiency they are willing to trade for stability.

Urgency, uncertainty and uneven returns with AI

AI sits at the intersection of opportunity and unease.

PwC’s survey shows widespread AI adoption, but limited value realization. More than half of CEOs globally say AI has not yet delivered meaningful financial returns, either through revenue growth or cost reduction.

The data from Australia and New Zealand tells a similar story. While digital transformation and innovation rank among top priorities for 2026, many leaders remain unclear on what effective AI deployment actually looks like. Alongside enthusiasm sits growing concern about cyber risk, data security and deepfake threats.

For CEOs, the challenge is no longer whether to invest in AI, but how to move from experimentation to integration, embedding AI into core processes, decision-making and customer value, rather than treating it as a standalone initiative.

Perhaps the most important insight from both surveys is how CEOs now define growth.

In Australia and New Zealand, a significant proportion of leaders are still planning to expand in 2026. But growth is increasingly selective. It is less about rapid scale, and more about strengthening foundations, diversifying markets and building optionality.

This shift aligns with PwC’s global findings, where many CEOs report entering new sectors or reassessing portfolios over the past five years. Growth, in this context, is about strategic reinvention, not expansion at any cost.

As geopolitical alignment, technology capability and resilience become competitive differentiators, the winners will be organizations that treat uncertainty as a constant, not an exception.

The CEO agenda for a volatile decade

Taken together, the research points to a defining moment for executive leadership:

∘ Confidence is tempered, not extinguished

∘ Risk management and growth strategy are now inseparable

∘ Geopolitics and technology shape every major decision

∘ AI demands discipline, not just enthusiasm

∘ Resilience is becoming a core source of value

For CEOs, the task is not to predict the future with certainty, but to build organizations capable of adapting to whatever comes next.

In an era of permanent disruption, leadership is no longer about controlling the environment – it’s about designing businesses that can thrive within it.

Opinions expressed by The CEO Magazine contributors are their own.