Name: BCG CEO: Half of CEOs Say Their Jobs Depend on Getting AI Right
Uploaded: 2026-01-22T14:51:00Z
Duration: 7 min 28 s
Description: BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer speaks with WSJ Leadership Institute President Alan Murray in Davos about why CEOs are doubling AI investment in 2026—and why 50% now say their own jobs are on the line if they fail to deliver real AI results. Schweizer also details findings from BCG’s “AI Radar,” which surveyed more than 2,300 executives across 16 countries.

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BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer speaks with WSJ Leadership Institute President Alan Murray in Davos about why CEOs are doubling AI investment in 2026—and why 50% now say their own jobs are on the line if they fail to deliver real AI results. Schweizer also details findings from BCG’s “AI Radar,” which surveyed more than 2,300 executives across 16 countries. Photo: Michael Claudio/WSJ

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BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer speaks with WSJ Leadership Institute President Alan Murray in Davos about why CEOs are doubling AI investment in 2026—and why 50% now say their own jobs are on the line if they fail to deliver real AI results. Schweizer also details findings from BCG’s “AI Radar,” which surveyed more than 2,300 executives across 16 countries.

BCG CEO: Half of CEOs Say Their Jobs Depend on Getting AI Right

I am here with Christoph Schweizer, the CEO of BCG. Christoph, thank you for spending some time with us.

It's great to be here, Alan.

I know you have the, you have the ear of many CEOs. You get to talk to them, listen to them. I wonder what you're hearing this year at Davos from CEOs.

I do think there are three topics that have been emerging. The first one is growth, the second one is AI, the third one is trade and how to run a global or multinational company. The growth one is really interesting to hear.

Let's do those one-by-one. Growth, what's the story?

Look, the reality is that in 2025 there have been so many things happening that a lot of companies went into a control what you can control mindset, which typically means you cut cost, you optimize your financials so that you have room to breathe and that you can adjust to whatever comes.

Yeah.

That's healthy. But that's a necessary condition for success. And at some point in time you can't do a whole lot more of that. And so I hear more and more CEOs who are now saying, well, the sufficient condition for success is that we return to growth. That's the only path to create value in the long run. Give you a few examples. I spoke with a European healthcare CEO just this morning. And he would have ample reason to worry about where Europe stands and what happens in the healthcare system. He says, "Christoph, this is a growth imperative year. And I will pull all levers, sales, marketing, pricing, M&A that I can pull to return to meaningful growth." I heard the same from some of the European bankers. You obviously hear it from the tech companies, you hear it from many Asian companies. There's a lot more talk about growth than you would suspect if you just read the headlines.

Fascinating. I mean, historically the return to growth happens after a recession. And we didn't have a recession last year. We may have had some pulling in of horns, but we didn't have a recession.

Yeah, that's right.

You think we got the curative effects of a recession without actually having one?

Well, we might have had that actually. And look, there has been a lot of curve balls. I mean, ever since COVID and then post COVID and then Russia-Ukraine, and then conflict in the Middle East and all sorts of changes and tariffs, et cetera. I mean, there's no CEO out there who did not have to handle a lot of disruption. And at some point you're just saying, well, okay,

Let's move on.

I built the muscle to do that, let's move on. And I think that's a bit what people are telling me.

Meaning they've built their resilience, now they're ready to go back to growth.

Absolutely. Yes.

AI has to be a part of that story. So let's talk about AI. I mean the one area of growth of course in the past year was what was happening with AI data centers and the build out of AI capabilities, or are we gonna start to see the fruits of that investment in 2026?

Well, let me tell you what corporate leaders are saying about their use of AI and what has changed. We just released what we call our AI Radar in which we surveyed more than 2,300 executives across 16 countries. And first of all, they say that they intend to more than double their investment in AI in 2026 compared to 2025. Wow. That's quite a statement.

Alan: Because 2025 was a big investment year.

It was a big step up already. So they are determined to continue that. The second thing is, the CEOs in that sample say, this is my agenda item. I have to own AI. You can say the CEOs are becoming the chief AI officers of their company. 72% of them say, I have to drive this. A year ago that number was exactly half, 36%. And Alan, super interesting, 50% of CEOs say, my job is on the line depending on whether I succeed or fail in bringing my company into the AI world. That's a dramatic change. Now, they do that with a lot of optimism. The CEOs are more literate. They know a lot more about the technology. They have experimented, they've seen pilots work, they've seen pilots fail. They invest more. They upskill their organizations more. And look, the leading companies and CEOs are now seeing real return. And that gives them confidence to reinvest and do even more. There's a positive flywheel and that is meaningfully different than it was a year or two ago.

It's not about cost cutting now it's about growth.

Well, it is obviously about general productivity. And productivity can happen in two ways. You reduce cost or you drive top line with existing cost. And I think all of them are seeing a mix of that. In general, I would say many of them have been positively surprised that there's more top line opportunity than they would've thought at the beginning.

That's a very optimistic scenario. But let's go to topic number three that's big here and that is geopolitics. Børge Brende, the president of the World Economic Forum said it's the most complicated geopolitical situation since 1945. Macron was on the stage just a little while ago saying, we're moving towards a world without rules. The AI driven growth mindset that you're describing only works if you have some stability in the world, doesn't it?

Well, stability is better than instability, that's for sure. But again, Alan, I come back to this theme that I described earlier. I mean, companies have developed a muscle to deal with the new reality. How does that look in practice? So go to a global industrial goods company or a global retailer, they have developed their, what we call control towers. We've been working with many of them hand-in-hand. You know, for any parameter change, and we always talk about tariffs, but there are many more parameter changes out there. Currency fluctuations, interest rate changes, non-tariff related trade barriers, et cetera. They now have their models, how does this impact my P&L? How does this impact my balance sheet? And they can simulate and they can more or less see very rapidly if something new comes up, what they have to do about it in terms of their supplier base, their manufacturing network, their sales channels, their capital allocation. So what used to take a month or two in simulation in boardrooms and executive suites can now take days or even hours. And look, is it exhausting? Yeah, sure. They would much rather not spend so much time on that, but I don't think it scares them. I mean, it's almost become a known unknown that you need to adjust. And I do think most CEOs at this point expect that they will continue to adjust regularly in 2026 and then the year beyond.

You're saying business has made the move to resilience and now is prepared to turn towards growth, which could lead to an optimistic picture in 2026.

Look, I'm an optimist and I am definitely an optimist for 2026. And I think you need to separate between the general kind of activity level, politically, geopolitically, societally, and how companies have learned to deal with that. And it's exactly that spirit of resilience that we are seeing. I'm optimistic for 2026 for our clients, for BCG, for the economy in general.

Well, thank you for that uplifting message. Thanks for taking some time to talk to us. Really appreciate it.

It's great to be with you. Thank you.

Have a great week in Davos.

And you as well. Thank you, Alan.

Join Alan Murray, President of the WSJ Leadership Institute, at the World Economic Forum for insights executives need to lead through 2026. He speaks with the biggest names and decision-makers shaping the business world—and all of our lives.