Generative AI: 
A Game-Changer for CEOs?

Authors: Benjamin Finzi, Betsy Mann, Anh Phillips

Generative AI (GenAI) has been touted as a powerful tool for innovation, creativity, and efficiency, transforming ways of working for many—including the role of the CEO. As companies continue to implement and become familiar with the technology, how are leaders harnessing GenAI in their daily work, evolving from efficiency-seeking benefits to opportunities for innovation? And what are the implications for the role of the CEO in a GenAI world?

This edition of our CEO Spotlight series highlights data from the Summer 2024 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey, exploring the ways in which CEOs are currently using GenAI personally, and how their behaviors today could be a 'game changer' for their role in the future.

Key highlights

Since Fall of 2022, GenAI has captivated headlines and particularly the focus of chief executives, from its productivity benefits to potential value seeking opportunities. Fast-forward to today, according to the latest CEO Survey, GenAI may be defying the traditional emerging technology hype curve as CEOs begin to evolve from low value to high value implementations. The previous surveys revealed the shift in GenAI adoption areas: from automation and efficiency-related tasks (Fall 2023) to a focus on insights and innovation (Winter 2024). In June 2024, CEOs reported increases in implementation in areas such as discovering new ideas/insights and accelerating innovation, while implementation remained consistent or decelerated in low value areas when compared to the prior survey in February.

To what extent are organizations already implementing Generative AI to improve how they do business?¹

Perhaps this data signals that organizations are facing an inflection point when it comes to their GenAI strategy. Therefore, CEOs might consider taking advantage of this moment to better understand advanced technology today and envision the opportunities for their role as CEO in the future. As organizations continue to build strategies for and capabilities around GenAI, we wanted to better understand how CEOs are using the technology today.

Leaders were asked in the summer survey how they are personally using GenAI in their role and nearly 75% of CEOs reported that they have or are using the technology to some extent. Interestingly, and differently from previous digital technology 'disruptions,' 49% of CEOs reported they have personally experimented with GenAI to understand its capabilities, and an additional 25% reported they are actively experimenting with it to uncover future business opportunities. Notably, 19% of CEOs surveyed report they are regularly using GenAI to support their job.

For the CEOs who are leveraging GenAI, their top use case was support for communications and marketing needs, including content generation, communications assistance, email drafts/summarization, and marketing purposes. Others reported support for research and data analysis. One CEO shared they use the technology to 'research new product trends, identify use cases for non-marketing functions/application by companies who are outside my industry.'

Interestingly, the third most popular use for GenAI focused on innovation and AI learning. From understanding its capabilities to generating ideas to piloting future business cases, the survey results indicate how CEOs are beginning to demonstrate the creative and innovative ways they can use the technology to transform how they approach work and effectively maximize their time in more strategic ways. This could also have implications for their organizations; one CEO shared, 'Currently, our focus is primarily on administrative tasks. However, our company is actively working on developing an AI algorithm that leverages our [internal] data. This algorithm aims to enhance our product by enabling the product to self-learn and improve over time using AI...'

Active experimentation with GenAI today is imperative for CEOs. Not only can this equip CEOs with the expertise to evolve their role as a leader in a GenAI world, but it may have further implications for their organizations. As discussed in our CEO series on GenAI, there are risks in accelerating adoption and scaling emerging technology without a vision for the enterprise and centralized decision-making hub to enable it, which are all decisions relevant to the CEO. Given the ever-changing GenAI landscape from technological advancements to the regulatory environment, critical decisions on investments, external partnerships, metrics, and governance require a vision, and therefore the CEO's involvement.

When it comes to the GenAI race, the adage of 'slowing down to speed up' may not be the best approach for CEOs. During this inflection point, CEOs can seize the opportunity to further engage with and embrace the technology, understand its capabilities and risks, and discover new ways of working — all to envision how their role could transform in the future. In order to do this, CEOs can explore the following:

¹ Deloitte, Summer 2024 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey, September 1, 2024.
² Ibid.