Too Many Executives Sweat The Small Stuff With AI, Versus Long-Term Value

How immersed should CEOs and other business leaders get in day-to-day AI? Yes, AI can an executive tool for strategic guidance and summarizing relevant meetings and documents from across their domains. And there’s been fierce debate about the implications of AI on the way they run organizations and support customers. But are leaders ready for what’s ahead — and do they foster a corporate culture that can embrace the transformative effects of AI?

For the most part, business leaders see AI as an important tool and something they need to better understand. But they don’t yet have a long-term vision on how AI is going to transform their businesses, and aren’t quite ready to pull the trigger on its proliferation.

That’s the word out of a new study published by Kearney and The Futurum Group, which surveyed and interviewed more than 200 CEOs running very large companies on their feelings about AI.

Top executives are open to exploration of AI, and the ones seeing the most returns so far are those who know to step back and let employees work the magic. The issue is AI in many organizations being slowed by short-term thinking and lack of appropriate measures of its success.

Most leaders, 78%, say they feel confident about capturing value from AI, and success rates are higher in organizations where executive leaders relinquish day-to-day control. In high-performing firms, only 59% of CEOs maintain direct oversight, compared to 92% among less successful ones, the study relates.

The study did not delve deeply into the impact of corporate culture on business leaders’ approaches to AI success, but the results map to a familiar pattern seen through the years for many technology-driven initiatives, from digital transformation to cloud to data analytics.

Pushing technology from the top down often means spending huge sums of dollars, euros, rupees, and pounds on expensive solutions and dropping in on top of dysfunctional, messy organizations — resulting in even more expensive dysfunction. A more participative approach — enabling those working within organizations to experiment with, recommend, and adopt tools and innovations they see fit for their jobs — delivers greater rewards.

At the same time, executives need to provide the vision and imagination to achieve more transformative effects. This is where business leaders are still stumbling when it comes to AI.

Across the board, 80% of leaders report at least moderate confidence in extracting measurable value from AI. However, only 19% say they actively position AI for transformative growth rather than near-term gains. The focus in AI to date, cited by 95% of leaders, has been on quick gains through immediate problem-solving rather than higher-value opportunities like workforce transformation or business model innovation.

“This paradox emerged clearly in CEO interviews,” the study’s co-authors, led by Ben Smith, partner with Kearney, Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group, and Dion Hinchcliffe, VP and CIO with The Futurum Group, state. “While most leaders see AI as a game-changer for operational efficiencies or cost reduction, few have fully mapped out how to leverage advanced capabilities for higher-impact use cases.”

Digital-native companies are having an easier time than mature organizations embracing AI as a long-term vision, the study also shows. Digital natives appear focused on clarifying strategic roadmaps (71% versus 29% of mature companies), elevating data readiness (37% versus 29%), and acquiring skilled AI talent (67% versus 33%) to maintain competitive momentum.

By contrast, mature organizations are more likely to emphasize “sustained viability” (45% versus 27% for digital natives) and stronger internal alignment (38% versus 25%), reflecting a longer-term lens that includes TCO considerations and historical data migrations.

“Speed without sufficient pilots, governance, or ROI safeguards commonly leads to oversights and shortfalls,” the co-authors point out. “Gradual, proof-of-value rollouts backed by change management often yield more lasting results.”