KSA首席执行官展望2025：驾驭人工智能和经济不确定性

JULY  CONTENTS The Key Takeaways03 IntroductionContextThemes in focus060708 Methodology09 Economic uncertaintyConfidence climbs closer to homeCEO trinity: Growth, discipline, and innovationBusiness functions CEOs aim to future-proof11121315 Barriers to AI adoption18 How to build absorptive capacity20 Annex 1: CEO sentiment on key sectors in Saudi Arabia next 3-5 years21 THE KEY TAKEAWAYS The 2025 Strategic Gears CEO Outlook offers a pulse reading on how business leaders inSaudi Arabia are navigating the twin cross-cuing forces shaping the business environment:economic uncertainty and artificial intelligence (AI). Based on a survey with 300 CEOs acrosssectors and firm sizes, this year’s edition uncovers how the twin forces are influencingconsequential decisions and priorities for Saudi leaders on operational discipline, strategicinvestment, and innovation.Here are the key takeaways: Confidence strengthens closer to home CEOs think their firms stand out within their sector While less than half of Saudi CEOs arecomfortable with the global economictrajectory, optimism rises as the lensnarrows to the Saudi economy and peaksat the firm level. When asked to assesstheir outlook across the global economy,Saudi economy, their sector, and theirfirm, CEOs followed a clear gradient:confidence in the Saudi economy isstronger than in the global one, andconfidence in their firm’s performance isgreater than in their sector. Survey responses show signs of comparativeoptimism bias when CEOs were asked about thetrajectories of their firms and sectors over the next12 months. Impressions seem to converge on aprinciple that the closer leaders are to their leversof operational control, the higher their optimism.The gap between firm and sector-level confidence,however, has some variance by sector: CEOs inretail and manufacturing show the widestdivergence, while those in arts and entertainmentare the only group more confident in the sectorthan in their firms. Growth, innovation, and discipline make upCEOs’ strategic “trinity” Functional agendas mirror sector direction of thenext five years Operations is the most uniformly prioritized internalfunction, more so in asset-heavy and supply-chaindependent industries like manufacturing. Meanwhile,research and development and tech integrationdominate in knowledge-intensive sectors.Client-facing sectors such as tourism andaccommodation give the nod to marketing andtalent more than other sectors, as branding andexperiences remain their revenue lynchpins. CEOs are converging around three prioritieswhen making decisions: an offensive side inbusiness development, a defensive side inoperational and financial efficiency, and atwo-way enabler in digital transformation.However, the weight each sector assigns tothese priorities varies. Manufacturing andprofessional services lead on market expansionand tech adoption, while transportation takesa more defensive cost discipline stance. The type of hurdle that slows AI adoption isinfluenced by firm size Impressions from manufacturing CEOssignal the most aggressive push for scale The survey reveals three clusters of hurdles thatslow AI adoption for companies. One, hurdlesthat are uniform across firms of all sizes,specifically the undetermined strategy of AI useand cybersecurity and legal concerns. Two,hurdles that are specific to small firms, namelythose related to cost constraints. And three,hurdles that are less pervasive but emerge withscale, such as corporate friction with changemanagement for mid-sized firms, and capabilitygaps for large firms due to their growinguse-case porolio. Leaders of Saudi Arabia’s manufacturingand industrial firms echo the highestappetite for new market entry, researchand development, and technologyintegration, and the lowest for financialausterity, compared to CEOs in othersectors. With the global trade landscape ina state of change, manufacturing CEOssee momentum in capturing an untappedexport potential. The road ahead for CEOs points at a race reach“escape velocity” with AI CEOs are cautious about AI, but optimismgrows with firm size Most surveyed CEOs, almost 6 in 10, view AIas an opportunity to grow their commercialviability and scale rather than a threat. Yetthis optimism is grounded in endogenousfactors related to firm resources andreadiness to create absorptive capacity,with two-thirds of large firms being on theupside of AI compared to 56% of small firms. AI is bringing with it a force multiplier that canpropel businesses to an “escape velocity” wheregrowth climbs quickly and decouples fromtraditional economic constraints, leaving laggingfirms playing catch-up. How quickly Saudi firmsmature in the technology adoption stage,ranging from denial, inflated expectations,disillusionment, to productivity, will be a bigfactor in their growth trajectory. INTRODUCTIONCONTEXT For Saudi Arabia, the gears are still shifted fordiversification. The economy has been growingdespite bumpy global cond