BCG’s survey of 1,400+ C-suite executives in the world reveals that GenAI is quickly transforming business practices but 90% of leaders are still waiting for it to move beyond the hype or are engaged in limited experimentation.

2023 marked a turning point for AI. ChatGPT, OpenAI’s wildly popular chatbot, became one of the fastest-growing web platforms of all time and now receives 1.5 billion visits every month. Bing Chat, Bard, and other generative AI (GenAI) competitors quickly followed.

While almost all the executives surveyed now rank AI and GenAI as a top-three tech priority for 2024, 66% of leaders are ambivalent or dissatisfied with their organisation’s progress on AI and GenAI—and only 6% have begun upskilling in a meaningful way. To seize the business opportunities that GenAI offers, executives must set up their organizations effectively.

To answer this question, 1,400+ C-suite executives in 50 markets and across 14 industries were surveyed. Their responses provided a number of insights. AI has become a top strategic priority and has shot to the top of the executive agenda. GenAI has ushered in a new world of business opportunities, and executives are eager to capitalize on them:

• 71% of the leaders surveyed declare that they plan to increase their company’s tech investments in 2024, up from 60% in 2023, and an even larger percentage (85%) say that they will increase their spending on AI and GenAI in 2024.
• 89% of executives rank AI and GenAI as a top-three tech priority for 2024.
• 54% of leaders expect AI to deliver cost savings in 2024. Of those, roughly half anticipate cost savings in excess of 10%, primarily through productivity gains in operations, customer service, and IT.

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