Although enterprise AI investment continues to accelerate, executive confidence in the strategies guiding this transformation is falling according to a new report.
The research from Akkodis, looking at the views of 500 global Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) among a wider group of 2,000 executives, finds that overall C-suite confidence in AI strategy dropped from 69 percent in 2024 to just 58 percent in 2025. The sharpest declines are reported by CTOs and CEOs, down 20 and 33 percentage points respectively.
CTOs also point to a leadership gap in AI understanding, with only 55 percent believing their executive teams have the fluency needed to fully grasp the risks and opportunities associated with AI adoption. Among employees, that figure falls to 46 percent, signaling a wider AI trust gap that could hinder successful AI implementation and long-term success.
The report also highlights that human skills are key to AI success. Although technical skill are vital, with 51 percent of CTOs citing specialist IT skills as the top capability gap, other abilities are important too, including creativity (44 percent), leadership (39 percent) and critical thinking (36 percent). These skills are increasingly useful for interpreting AI outputs, driving innovation and adapting AI systems to diverse business contexts.
Despite growing investment in employee learning and development though, many organizations still lack the infrastructure to ensure training is targeted and impactful. Only 20 percent of CTOs report using data tools to assess current workforce skills or monitor learning progress.
Although many enterprises continue to focus on external hiring to address capability gaps, the report warns that this approach may fall short in terms of scaling AI. This is because external hires often lack the organizational knowledge and cross-functional relationships needed to implement AI at scale.
The report’s authors note:
As organizations transition from AI experimentation to deep AI integration, CTOs are increasingly seen as pivotal enterprise transformation leaders. Their responsibilities now extend beyond infrastructure and operations to include cross-functional AI strategy, executive enablement, and systems design that supports both technical and human capacity.
By aligning skills strategy with enterprise architecture and fostering greater AI fluency across leadership teams, CTOs can help close the gap between AI ambition and execution — building organizations that are not just AI-ready, but AI-confident.
The full What CTOs Think report is available from the Akkodis site.
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