CEOs and their board of directors aren’t on the same page about how quickly their companies should integrate AI, according to a new BCG survey.
“Split Decision: The BCG CEOs and Boards Survey,” published on Monday, polled 625 business leaders worldwide. Of the 351 CEOs and 274 board members from leading companies surveyed, 44% were based in the US.
The survey results point to a divide at the top of organizations over the pace of AI transformation. While boards tend to favor an aggressive approach to AI adoption, CEOs prefer a slower rollout, it found.
Specifically, 61% of surveyed CEOs felt their boards are “rushing AI transformation,” with 54% agreeing and 7% who strongly agreeing with the statement. By contrast, 21% of CEOs disagreed or strongly disagreed, while 18% held a neutral opinion.
CEOs said they want boards to take a more “cautious” and “deliberate” approach. Boards, meanwhile, said they are pushing executives to be “more aggressive” and pursue more AI opportunities across their organizations, the survey found.
BCG suggested that the gap may be partly driven by boards’ confidence in their understanding of AI. Among board members with lower confidence in their AI knowledge, 40% said their organizations were moving too slowly with AI adoption, compared with 20% who were satisfied with the current pace.
The consulting firm said this may indicate that “uncertainty is translating into a heightened sense of urgency.”
More than half of the surveyed CEOs said boards needed a better grasp of the gap between “headline AI hype” and reality.
The tension comes as companies increasingly bake AI into workflows. Big Tech and Wall Street firms have been setting internal goals and revamping performance reviews to encourage AI adoption.
Meta has set goals for engineers; Google managers can mandate the use of assistants and AI agents; and JPMorgan Chase tracks AI usage through internal dashboards.
At Amazon, the pressure to adopt AI is also rising. Business Insider’s chief tech correspondent Eugene Kim reported that the tech giant’s retail division is now monitoring how many engineers use AI each month and how often those tools are embedded into daily workflows.
At many leading companies, using AI is no longer up for debate. At the top, however, the question is just how fast to implement it.
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