In today’s rapidly evolving world of work, CEOs face complex challenges, tasking them with navigating through economic uncertainty, technological disruptions, shifting workforce expectations, and heightened stakeholder scrutiny.
The 2026 CEO Priorities and Perspectives Report from SHRM offers a timely window into how top executives are planning for the year ahead and what they see as the biggest opportunities and risks for their organizations. The report shares how CEOs are prioritizing their efforts in response to these challenges and what this means for both business performance and people strategy.
Research Framework
To understand how CEOs are navigating this landscape, SHRM Thought Leadership surveyed 116 CEOs in October 2025, identifying their foremost priorities and challenges as well as expected trends for the year ahead. The findings reveal a clear mandate for visionary leadership capable of integrating technology, financial performance, and human capital strategy.
Top 5 CEO Priorities and Perspectives That Emerged Are
1. Adopting AI, Driving Revenue Growth, and Attracting Top Talent Are CEOs’ Top Priorities
Adopting artificial intelligence (cited by 40%), driving revenue growth (31%), and attracting top talent (27%) are CEOs’ leading priorities for the year ahead. This demonstrates how financial performance, workforce strategy, and technology adoption must come together to achieve both short-term and long-term organizational success
2. Technology Advancement and Adaptation as the Primary Challenge for CEOs
More than half of CEOs identified technological advancements as a more pressing external force than traditional economic headwinds (56%), while adapting to technological advancements, such as the integration of AI (54%), as the top challenge their organization faces today.
3. AI is expected to reshape Work, Talent, and Value creation while introducing new risks
While nearly 9 in 10 CEOs (89%) said they expect AI to redefine how their organizations create and capture value, a significant 88% anticipating that AI-enabled attacks will intensify cybersecurity threats. Therefore, CEOs see AI not only as a technological investment and as a fundamental shift in the ways of working, but also forcing leaders to navigate the complex security, ethical, and operational challenges that will come along with it.
4. Workforce strategies are expected to evolve to meet demands for agility and efficiency
Over the next 12 months, CEOs anticipate a growing emphasis on digital collaboration tools and platforms (87%), rising labor and total workforce costs (81%), a significant shift towards organizational agility in workforce management (78%) and increased collaboration between themselves, CHROs, and other C-suite leaders to manage workforce risk (76%).
5. Work, Worker, and Workplace Each Matter
The research also highlights three lenses through which CEOs view transformation:
- Work: How work is changing (tech, AI, processes)
- Worker: How talent needs and expectations are shifting
- Workplace: How organizational systems adapt to both work and workers
Conclusion
The 2026 CEO Priorities and Perspectives Report portrays a clear picture: CEOs are balancing innovation, growth, and people strategy in a world reshaped by technology and economic shifts. By capturing the leaders’ top priorities, challenges, and trend expectations, the report serves as a strategic roadmap, not just for CEOs, but also HR leaders and Managers who are looking to align business and workplace performance in the year ahead.
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