CEOs are increasingly enthusiastic about deploying generative AI technology like ChatGPT as part of their strategic plans, but they're wary about climate change and regulations, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
About two-thirds of CEOs (68% in the U.S. versus 64% globally) believe the next 12 months will show Gen AI increasing the amount of work that employees can accomplish. Around half of CEOs (50% in the U.S. versus 59% globally) see the technology helping them become more productive in their own work. U.S. CEOs are hopeful about the impact on profits, with 44% saying they see GenAI providing a net increase in profits in the next 12 months, while only 3% project a net decrease.
Over half of the U.S. CEOs polled (52%) said their No. 1 goal over the next three years is generating new revenue streams, followed by embedding new technologies into their business model (12%), transforming existing products by integrating digital features (11%) and digitizing their operating model (10%). Fifty-seven percent of U.S. CEOs anticipate technology
changes will drive future value creation for their organizations by either a large or very large extent, outpacing changing consumer preferences (45%) and government regulation (39%).
Over one-fourth of U.S. CEOs (29%) are pushing ahead with climate-friendly investments despite potentially lower returns as they try to find the right balance between mitigating climate risk and sustaining shareholder returns. The most significant climate action taken by U.S. CEOs involves making their companies more energy efficient, with 86% saying it's either planned, in progress or completed.
Still, the U.S. is behind much of the world when it comes to sustainability. "However, U.S. CEOs lag in their climate plans compared with their global counterparts, and many CEOs report having no plans for a range of other key actions," said the report. "For example, just 59% of U.S. respondents say incorporating climate risk into financial planning is either planned, in progress or completed, below the 66% of global respondents — and more than one-third (38%) of U.S. CEOs have no plans to factor climate risk into planning."
Investor demands and the regulatory environment may be prompting them to make their companies more sustainable and try to factor in climate-related risks, but CEOs tend to look on regulations unfavorably. Nearly one-third (31%) of U.S. CEOs say the regulatory environment is the biggest impediment to creating value, followed by competing operational priorities (27%), limited financial resources such as cash flows (19%), lack of workforce skills (13%), lack of tech investment (13%) and bureaucratic processes (10%).
