Quarterly Multi-Source CEO Priorities Tracker · Q3 2026

The CEO agenda this quarter. 31 sources, one synthesis.

Surveys, sentiment indices, expert panels, stewardship policies, analytical insights and scenario frameworks, triangulated into a single quarterly view. Sources current to September 2026.

31 sources
10 themes
The gap this quarter
24 of 31
sources rank AI as a high or very high priority.
12 of 31
rank capital allocation that high.
Cross-Source Theme Heatmap

Where 31 sources agree. And where they part ways.

The larger the dot, the higher the priority. Orange marks very high. Tap a source name for the full study details. Tap a theme to see how each source ranks it.

Priority: very high high medium low very low not addressed
Swipe to explore the full heatmap →

Sources: surveys (22), indices (2), expert panels (2), stewardship policies (2), analytical insights (2) and a scenario framework (1).

Movement Since Q2

What changed this quarter

AI scrutiny replaced AI enthusiasm. The share of CEOs saying it is too early to judge the return on AI rose to 53 percent from 41 percent. 61 percent now say their boards push AI too aggressively. Oliver Wyman x NYSE, BCG.
US confidence recovered, Europe did not. The Conference Board measure rose to 52 from 47 and the Business Roundtable index to 94, a four-year high. European CFOs turning less optimistic jumped from 25 to 48 percent. TCB, BRT, Deloitte.
German industrial capital moved. 43 percent of German industrial firms plan foreign investment, 41 percent of them for cost reasons, the highest share since 2003. Among those, 47 percent will cut domestic employment. DIHK, Horvath.
Circularity was reframed as cost. Sustainability lost prominence year on year while material and indirect production costs moved to the centre of manufacturing cost programmes averaging 5.5 percent of revenue. Horvath.
Two leadership advisory sources were added. Egon Zehnder surveyed 1,235 CEOs, Heidrick and Struggles 1,921 CEOs and directors. Both rank AI and geopolitics at the top. Neither codes capital allocation as a priority at all. Egon Zehnder, Heidrick and Struggles.
Two tracker entries were retired. No Oliver Wyman European CFO Survey and no Oliver Wyman COO survey exist as sampled studies. The CEO Agenda 2026 and CFO Agenda 2026 replace them. Correction.
The Question the Data Raises

Every agenda announces the AI investment. None shows which capital gets freed to fund it.

24 of 31 sources treat AI as a high or very high priority. 12 treat capital allocation that way, and they are not the same sources. Among the 19 CEO-facing surveys, 2 rank capital allocation high. Among the 12 CFO, investor, and European industrial sources, 10 do. The announcement lives on the CEO agenda. The arithmetic lives somewhere else.

86 percent of executives raise AI budgets. 12 percent name return on investment as the reason. 53 percent of CEOs say it is too early to judge the return at all. A commitment of that size gets funded from somewhere, and the surveys that carry the commitment go quiet on the source. The question the heatmap surfaces: which capital is being released, from which assets, and what was that capital earning before.

See What the Extended Shareholder Return™ (ESR) Diagnostic Reveals
Theme Deep-Dive

What each source says

Tap a source to see what it found.

Sources