Your CEO's Priorities for 2026: The New Executive Playbook

**Karen Stokes-Lockhart** (0:06)
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Welcome to Gartner ThinkCast. I'm Karen Stokes-Lockhart. Just a few weeks ago, we covered Gartner's CIO agenda for 2026 This week, we'll be tackling our CEO agenda for the year. CEOs are faced with a new set of leadership tests as they deal with economic, social, and political uncertainties, all wrapped up in the rapid development of AI and related technologies. So if you've been wondering what's on the mind of your CEO in 2026, here's your guide. You'll hear from Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst, Don Scheibenreif, with a condensed version of his presentation from Gartner IT Symposium Xpo. He'll walk through what we're calling the wicked messes of the last year and how these have shaped the agenda shifts that other tech executives should anticipate next. Now, here's Don.

**Don Scheibenreif** (1:31)
My name's Don Scheibenreif. I'm a Distinguished Analyst here with Gartner, and I'm part of the team that does the CEO survey every year. And if you ever wondered what's on the mind of your CEOs, this is the session to be in. Thank you so much for attending. What I'd like to do is start off with a story. A few years ago in India, the agriculture situation was a wicked mess. In India, cotton farmers were suffering from monsoon failure and severe drought. The push to use GMO seeds actually made the problem even worse and created environmental damage. Social unrest was common among the cotton farmers. Some of them fell into poverty and sadly many took their own lives. Arvin Limited, a textile company, was in the middle of this wicked mess because they relied on these cotton farmers. Now, wicked messes require extraordinary diplomacy, leadership, influence, and cross-functional engagement to be understood as well as to be solved. So Arvin didn't hesitate. It partnered with the government's Better Cotton Initiative. It launched its own programs on sustainable cotton farming. It stabilized the pricing that farmers were paid for cotton, and it helped farmers cut costs. All of this built trust, efforts that are still in place today. Over 20,000 farmers in the Gujarat province have gained economic stability, suicide rates dropped, and the environment improved. So Arvin not only saved lives, but they also became a global leader in sustainable cotton.
Now, CEOs today are struggling with their own wicked messes, and for 40 years, they've relied on the same playbook and the same strategies to get through the messes. But today, these playbooks are outdated, causing a loss of confidence. Gartner's first ever CEO Confidence Index places CEO confidence at 49.6, right smack dab in the middle. This highlights their hesitancy over what plays to make next. And today's complexity is increasing the pressure and causing actually many CEOs to lose their jobs. In 2024, over 202 CEOs lost their jobs, either through planned or unplanned attrition. An average CEO tenure has dropped to just four and a half years. Clearly, CEOs need to take a page out of Arvind's playbook. Let's talk about Lee Iacocca, the famous auto industry icon. He did not hesitate to act when he took over the nearly bankrupt Chrysler. He secured federal loan guarantees, he closed factories, he slashed costs, all at the same time of developing the venerated minivan. This was an important development for leaders at the time.
When CEOs hesitate to make decisions, it's a real headache for you as a CIO. It leaves a gap or a vacuum when it comes to time to making decisions. It makes it hard for you to push technology projects forward. Getting funding and resources takes longer. Everyone gets more nervous about taking risk, and it's harder and harder to manage and keep good people. Now, if you see this kind of vacuum, it's actually your opportunity to step up.
Now, to step up into that vacuum, you first need to confirm your CEO's priorities. In each year, for the last 20 years, we've checked in with CEOs and asked what's important to you. And with all the chaos this year, these insights can help you show how technology can help drive growth in a turmoil-based environment, even when things are messy. It can help you point out quick, low-risk projects that can make a big difference and get approved fast. Because getting things done actually builds trust. Here are the CEOs' current priorities and how they have changed since 2024 The headline is, regardless of market turmoil, CEOs are still relentlessly pursuing growth. Business resilience is also a big concern, and CEOs are adjusting their risk appetites. Cost management is consuming a lot of CEO time due to the tariffs and technology is even more important, largely due to AI. Just like last year, growing revenue and grabbing market share still matter, but money is a little bit tighter now. So to keep growing, CEOs are thinking about shifting their business to new markets and new locations and branching out. This helps them handle new risks and makes the companies even tougher. Technology has risen again as a CEO priority driven primarily by AI. Now, almost 80 percent of CEOs see AI as the number one technology that's going to disrupt their industry. However, as you heard in the keynote yesterday, many organizations struggle to realize the value from AI. There's also this idea of technology sovereignty, and CEOs are really thinking about, how can I use AI to create a new business future, not just become more efficient? What about people? A lot of talk about people in AI today. The truth is from our research, CEOs are actually unsure about what kind of workforce strategy is needed. They say people are important for growth, but the organization lacks sufficient skills and talent when it comes to AI. However, they are also wondering when they can design humans out of the business model.