Reinvention in a fragmenting world: What CEOs are saying (and need to know) in 2026

As business leaders, we operate in a world reorganizing itself in real time. Across industries and regions, economic power is shifting, technology is moving faster than operating models can adapt and the workforce is changing shape at a pace few organizations feel prepared for.

Volatility is the baseline rather than the exception.

PwC’s 29th Annual Global CEO Survey reflects the perspectives of more than 4,400 chief executives across 95 countries and reinforces what many of us are experiencing firsthand. Short-term pressures are rising while long-term structural shifts are redefining global competitiveness. The tension between the urgent and the important has rarely felt sharper.

What also comes through clearly in this year’s survey is that these pressures are not isolated. CEOs are grappling with interconnected shifts. From trust and innovation to climate considerations and the accelerating impact of artificial intelligence (AI), these shifts are reshaping the fundamentals of how businesses compete and create value.

The data gives us a comprehensive view of the forces at play; the task now is to translate that reality into the strategic choices that will define the next decade.

Across the world, energy systems, transportation corridors, industrial zones, and data centres are being built at a historic pace – in the process, redrawing the global map of infrastructure and influence.

This investment is shifting centres of economic gravity, redrawing supply chains, industry clusters and strategic hubs. More than half of CEOs expect to make international investments in the year ahead, with notable momentum toward India and the Middle East.

For leaders, the question is not simply where to allocate capital. The deeper consideration is how this global rebuilding will reshape competitiveness and opportunity in the decade ahead. Countries and companies that rethink their operations, risk management and business models will be the ones that pull ahead.

Nations and regions are coalescing into digital ecosystems, often reflecting and reinforcing geopolitical alignments. For businesses, fragmented digital ecosystems affect how reliably data and tech platforms can operate across borders, which markets companies can operate in and how resilient supply chains can be.

Leaders are increasingly navigating multiple regulatory and technology environments and working more closely with governments and partners to ensure the infrastructure they depend on is secure, trusted and interoperable. Public-private collaboration – and strategic clarity on governance – are non-negotiable.

Digital strategy is more linked to global risk as countries adopt different approaches to cloud sovereignty, tech governance and cybersecurity. The CEO Survey shows how sharply this issue is rising on leadership agendas. Concern about cyber risk has increased for the third consecutive year, now sitting alongside macroeconomic volatility as the top near-term threat CEOs feel highly or extremely exposed to.

The scale of investment in AI infrastructure is already reshaping competitive dynamics. Yet according to the CEO Survey, fewer than a quarter of CEOs say AI is applied extensively across core activities and most report no meaningful revenue gains or cost reductions in the past year.

PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey shows that only 14% of workers use generative AI daily, underscoring the gap between investment and adoption.

Many organizations remain early in the J-curve of AI impact. However, traction is accelerating. About 30% of CEOs report revenue uplift from AI – early proof that companies integrating AI into decision-making, products and services are pulling ahead.

The takeaway is clear: organizations that move from pilots to enterprise-level integration will capture disproportionate value.

Accelerating AI adoption will reshape work, replacing some tasks and roles but generating many new jobs and even industries. PwC research shows that AI could add up to 15% to global gross domestic product within a decade as the technology enables new ways to build, move, connect, feed and care for communities across the world – in the process creating new career pathways for workers.

The number one question on CEOs’ minds is whether their organization is transforming fast enough to keep up with technology, including AI. As the speed of change accelerates, AI is redefining human-technology partnerships and magnifying the value workers can deliver.

Agentic AI has particularly strong potential to multiply the value people can create by putting a tireless team at the command of human workers who are are optimistic about an AI era.

PwC's 2025 Hopes & Fears survey shows 92% of daily GenAI users feel it has tangibly benefited their productivity and a majority feel it has benefited their job security and salary. This optimism should be accompanied by realism about the skills needed to succeed in an AI era.

Required skills are changing 66% faster in the most AI-exposed occupations, finds PwC’s Global AI Jobs Barometer. The highest-performing organizations will be those in which people and AI co-create, with leaders who are adept at integrating the relative strengths of people and technology so they deliver maximum impact together.

CEOs know that standing still is not an option in a world moving this quickly. In our 2025 survey, nearly four in 10 said their company will not be viable in 10 years if it stays on its current path.

The upside is significant for those who proactively adapt to a new reality. PwC research shows that companies that reinvent well – adapting their business and operating models – achieve a typical 71% performance premium (a combined measure of impact on profit margin and revenue growth).

Preparing a business for the structural shifts that will define the next decade requires clarity, realism and adaptability. Leaders best positioned to achieve this will:

Leaders who build the capacity to adapt and act with conviction will lead the next era of global growth.