C-suite Sours On AI Despite Rising Investment, Survey Finds

Executives are losing faith in AI initiatives despite rising investment, according to a study conducted by consultancy Akkodis.

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 whom its corporate parent surveyed about AI trends.

The resulting 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.

"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.

"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.

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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."

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 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.

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." ®