CEOs are calmer about the world — and twice as worried about their own companies. Paul Witkay has been sitting in confidential rooms with chief executives through every cycle since the dot-com era. He’s the founder of the Alliance of Chief Executives and publishes a quarterly Business Barometer that tracks what CEOs are actually thinking across industries and around the world. In this conversation with Bill Gallagher, Paul walks through four quarters of data — and the picture is striking. After eighteen months of uncertainty that left CEOs frozen like deer in headlights, the mood shifted to action. Not because they found answers, but because they couldn’t afford to stay frozen. And sixteen times more respondents now say that twelve months from now, things will be even more unpredictable than today. Unpredictability isn’t a phase — it’s the new constant.

They dig into the inside-outside paradox, where CEOs are getting less negative about the global economy but more pessimistic about their own businesses. Paul shares the AI data — the only indicator that showed as a tailwind in a sea of headwinds. Sixty-one percent of CEOs are now building AI agents in-house, fifty percent have AI mandates, and the job numbers surprised everyone: twenty-nine percent are adding staff because of AI while only twelve percent are cutting. Bill shares how AI runs through every part of his coaching, book, and PhD work — and they talk about what happens to companies that decide AI isn’t for them. If you lead a company and you’re trying to figure out how to move forward when nobody has the answers, this one’s for you.

Links:

Alliance of Chief Executives: https://allianceofceos.com

Paul Witkay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulwitkay/

Q2 Barometer survey opens June — contact [email protected]

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Busy Is Broken

Have you ever had a week where you're completely slammed but somehow nothing actually moved? Is this one of those weeks? That’s not really a time problem. It's a busyness habit problem. My new book, Busy Is Broken: Do Less, Scale More, is about growing by doing less, not more. Read or listen to a sample chapter, over at busyisbroken.com. That's busyisbroken.com. Also on amazon and other booksellers.