CEO insights – What do CEOs talk about?

In short According to the latest What CEOs Talked About report, three themes stood out in CEOs’ minds in Q1 2025: Tariffs, uncertainty, and AI (with agentic AI seeing the most gains). Discussions about recruiting dropped as mentions of hiring freezes spiked. Why it matters The prioritization of specific topics by CEOs may influence investment in these areas. The big picture New administration’s...

In short According to the latest “What CEOs talked about” report, three themes gained noticeable traction in Q4 2024: 1) tariffs, 2) reshoring, and 3) agentic AI. Discussions regarding AI continued to decline; however, agentic AI significantly climbed in mentions. Despite recent catastrophic hurricanes, flooding, and winter storm events, sustainability-related topics declined in mentions...

In short According to the latest “What CEOs talked about” report, four themes gained noticeable traction in Q3 2024: 1) practical AI applications, 2) renewable energy sources, 3) unpredictable IT outages, and 4) election-related topics. Discussions regarding AI slightly declined; however, there is a noticeable shift toward discussions about specific AI applications, such as process automation,...

In short According to the latest “What CEOs talked about” report, three themes gained noticeable traction in Q2 2024: 1) AI, 2) data center, and 3) specific up-and-coming LLMs AI is inching closer to overtaking inflation as the leading topic in boardroom discussions. OpenAI and other generally known LLM vendors and models decline in mentions as Llama, Cohere, and Mistral see significant climbs...

In short According to the latest “What CEOs talked about” report, three themes gained noticeable traction in Q1 2024: 1) AI, 2) sustainability, and 3) elections. AI discussions continue to move away from ChatGPT and other chatbots and toward individual technologies, especially GPUs and LLMs Economic topics like recession significantly declined, though inflation saw a bump in mentions in Q1 2024....