In a post-election Fortune / Deloitte CEO Survey, based on responses from more than 140 CEOs of the world’s largest and most influential companies, 84% expressed optimism about their company’s performance in the next year.
Nearly half are optimistic about the global economy, up from 7% a year ago, and two-thirds see opportunity in AI.
Jason Girzadas, CEO of Deloitte U.S., which sponsored the survey, said “optimism indexed is as high as we’ve seen” in the 14 editions of the survey, citing tax policy, deregulation, and technological transformation as key drivers. “This transformation theme has begun to emerge as a prominent priority.”
Several CEOs also joined a Fortune virtual roundtable to discuss the survey and their outlook.
Some edited highlights:
“There is positivity out there. People are traveling. We need to provide an excellent customer experience. How do you marry employees and technology to create loyalty? Clear, consistent communication about change.” — Chrissy Taylor, Enterprise Mobility.
“It’s cautious optimism. Potential tariffs or immigration policies could be constraining. We import a lot. If you’re talking about mass roundups of immigrants, agriculture will unravel.” — Scott Boatwright, Chipotle Mexican Grill.
“CEOs may be drawn into policy issues in ways they’d prefer to stay out. I rarely meet a CEO who wakes up in the morning and thinks about how they can insert themselves into the news. Things happen where we don’t have a choice but to weigh in.” — David Meadvin, One Strategy Group.
“Communications that I’ve been doing for 10 years is now done by an agent. We are developing models that understand the world much better than humans do. We’ll need to learn new tasks, new skills, and we will need to find places for people who will be replaced by technology.” — Alex Zhavoronkov, Insilico Medicine.
“What we’re watching very carefully is currency as we have a lot of business in Europe and Japan. And federal spending, as we also have business with the federal government. The cost of deploying AI is reaching a commodity level in terms of cost.” — Milan Shetti, Rocket Software.
“I think the economy in Canada has been stabilizing when it comes to inflation. The Bank of Canada announced another rate cut of 50 basis points … People started traveling and going out more. A lot of the discretional spend started going from shopping into other categories.” — Sebastian Picardo, Holt Renfrew.
“Workers want to come back and engage in experiences. They’re saying, ‘I don’t care about flexibility. I want experience. I don’t just want a participation trophy. I want to be on a winning team.’” — Christina Kosmowski, LogicMonitor.
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Written by Diane Brady for Fortune as “Deloitte survey: CEO optimism ‘is as high as we’ve ever seen’” and republished with permission.
