CEOs around the world are anxious about the economy but also confident that they can handle the challenges presented by AI and cybersecurity, according to a new survey.

The 2024 CEO Outlook, released last week by the accounting firm KPMG International, is based on a survey of 1,325 CEOs in 11 countries, including the United States, in July and August 2024. In general, overall confidence in the global economy is at a low boil: 72 percent of CEOs say they’re optimistic about the economy, similar to recent years, but still low compared to a high of 93 percent in 2015.

Their anxiety is tied to both lingering elements of the pandemic and emerging threats. The supply chain tops the list of leading threats among CEOs (supplanting geopolitics and political uncertainty, the top concern in last year’s survey), and cybersecurity is third on the list, up from eighth in last year’s survey. But as much as technology is seen as a threat, it’s also seen as a way forward. According to the survey, nearly two-thirds of CEOs (64 percent) say they’ll invest in AI “regardless of economic conditions.”

That’s because leaders say technology investment is key to their financial sustainability: Top operational priorities included “advancing digitization and connectivity across their businesses” and “understanding and implementing generative AI across the business and upskilling their workforce.”

Contrary to the narrative that AI represents a job-killing phenomenon, a healthy majority of CEOs (76 percent) say that AI won’t lead to headcount reductions in the next three years; indeed, 92 percent of CEOs say they anticipate headcount will grow in that time, well ahead of the 81 percent who said so last year. However, CEOs did express concern about whether their workforce is well-equipped for AI, and if skills requirements for jobs need adjusting; only 38 percent of respondents said they felt confident “their employees have the right skills to fully leverage the benefits” of AI. 

CEOs’ future-thinking approach to technology is woven around a back-to-normal attitude when it comes to physical offices. Eighty-three percent of CEOs say they predict a full return to office in the next three years, a substantial leap from 64 percent in 2023’s survey. (That trend is echoed in Amazon’s announcement last week that employees will be expected to return to the office full-time next year.) The harder line on remote work is a function of the age of the CEO, however—87 percent of leaders 60 to 69 years old support a return-to-the-office, while only 75 percent of those aged 40 to 49 do.

The debate over remote and hybrid work is tied to concerns about the future of the workforce, and what it will take to recruit and retain workers. The survey notes that 31 percent of CEOs are “concerned about labor market shifts” such as increased employee retirement and a lack of qualified replacements. As a release about the survey notes: “80 percent of CEOs agree that organizations should be investing in skills development and lifelong learning within local communities to safeguard access to future talent.”