African CEOs prioritise AI investment despite readiness gap – KPMG

African business leaders are increasingly prioritising artificial intelligence (AI) investment, but only 14 per cent believe their organisations are keeping pace with or moving ahead of AI developments.

Meanwhile, 66 per cent of global business leaders are moving ahead of AI developments, according to a new KPMG survey.

The survey also found that 72 per cent of African chief executive officers (CEOs) identify AI as a top investment priority.

This highlights a gap between businesses’ ambitions to adopt the technology and their readiness to deploy it.

The findings are contained in the 2026 KPMG Africa CEO Outlook, launched in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday.

The report examines business leaders’ growth expectations, investment priorities, economic risks, workforce strategies and sustainability readiness across the continent.

KPMG Africa CEO Outlook

According to the report, the gap between AI investment priorities and organisational readiness underscores the challenge facing African businesses as they seek to translate technological ambition into measurable business results.

While 48 per cent of African CEOs expect returns on their AI investments within one to three years, compared with 71 per cent globally, 42 per cent expect returns to take more than three years, against 12 per cent of global CEOs.

The report suggests that the longer investment horizon may reflect the work required to strengthen data infrastructure, integrate AI into existing systems, establish appropriate governance and develop the skills needed to realise its benefits.

Speaking at the launch, Tola Adeyemi, senior partner and chief executive officer of KPMG One Africa, said the survey was intended to challenge business leaders’ existing assumptions, inspire new ideas and validate decisions they were already making.

The firm surveyed 176 CEOs across Africa, from north to south and east to west, as part of a global survey of 1,400 CEOs across industries.

“One clear message from the survey, when it came to economic outlook, is that African CEOs are optimistic about the growth prospects of their organisations, in spite of the environment in which they operate,” Mr Adeyemi said.

He, however, stressed that ambition alone would not deliver the expected results, saying businesses needed disciplined execution and resilience to translate their growth targets into tangible outcomes.

Mr Adeyemi also challenged the widespread concern that AI adoption would necessarily lead to job losses, saying African CEOs expected their workforces to expand as businesses integrated the technology.

“Rather, it is one of rescaling the workforce and looking for different types of talent that can work alongside technology to optimise results,” he said, describing workforce transformation as a central part of the AI conversation.

The survey found that 84 per cent of African CEOs expect their organisations’ headcounts to increase over the next three years, compared with 89 per cent globally.

It also found that 86 per cent intend to retain and retrain high-potential employees, while 82 per cent are redesigning roles, career paths and team structures to support human-AI collaboration.

Despite these plans, skills shortages remain a significant constraint. Some 59 per cent of African CEOs identified workforce skills gaps as a challenge, 58 per cent cited AI upskilling and training, and 52 per cent pointed to difficulties attracting and retaining talent.

The findings suggest that businesses’ ability to benefit from AI will depend not only on investment in technology but also on their capacity to develop the workforce and organisational systems required to use it effectively.

Data security

The report identified cybersecurity and data security, alongside supply-chain resilience, as the leading threats to growth, each cited by 31 per cent of African CEOs. The integration of AI into operating models and workflows followed at 27 per cent.

In response, 45 per cent of African CEOs said they were increasing investment in cybersecurity and digital-risk resilience, while 36 per cent were investing more in regulatory compliance and reporting and 31 per cent in AI integration.

Mr Adeyemi said the findings pointed to the importance of resilience as businesses prepared for the coming year.

“I would expect that as we go from 2026 into 2027, we would see that continued focus on resilience as an enabler of growth,” he said.

Revenue growth and sustained profitability

Despite the uncertainties, African CEOs remain broadly optimistic about the economic outlook.

The survey found that 66 per cent of CEOs were confident in the global economy, broadly in line with the global benchmark of 65 per cent.

Confidence in domestic economies stood at 72 per cent, while 79 per cent expressed confidence in their own organisations’ growth prospects.

The optimism follows a year of relatively strong business performance, with 86 per cent of African CEOs reporting revenue growth in their latest financial year.

However, only 58 per cent expect annual earnings growth of at least 2.5 per cent over the next three years, compared with 68 per cent globally.

It suggested that converting revenue growth into sustained profitability remains a challenge for businesses operating amid economic uncertainty and rising operational pressures.

“Africa’s growth opportunity will depend on how effectively businesses work across markets, develop talent and build the capabilities needed to compete in a changing global economy.

“The priority is to move from recognising the opportunity to executing against it, with investment decisions that strengthen resilience today while building capacity for long-term growth,” Mr Adeyemi added, creating a picture on how African CEOs could turn their confidence into execution.

The report noted that Africa’s energy resources, critical minerals, expanding consumer markets and opportunities to develop local manufacturing and value chains could attract investment as global supply chains shift.

Realising these opportunities, however, would depend on reliable energy, infrastructure, skills, connectivity and predictable regulatory environments, the report noted.

Sustainability reporting

The survey also found progress in sustainability reporting readiness, with 65 per cent of African CEOs saying their organisations had the capacity to meet new reporting requirements, up from 55 per cent in the previous year.

However, only 48 per cent said they were embedding sustainability more deeply into their core business strategies, compared with 63 per cent globally.

KPMG said the broader challenge was to incorporate sustainability into business decisions in ways that improve operational resilience, efficiency and long-term value creation.

Economic uncertainty

Beyond technology, the survey identified economic uncertainty and geopolitical disruption as significant considerations for African businesses.

The report attributed this disruption to changing energy prices, supply-chain pressures and trade relationships that affect operating costs and investment decisions.

Also, speaking to PREMIUM TIMES after the launch, Frank Blackmore, lead economist at KPMG South Africa, said expectations for global economic growth had improved at the beginning of 2026, supported by easing inflation and interest-rate cuts in several economies.

However, geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran disrupted energy markets and introduced fresh uncertainty, he said.

Mr Blackmore explained that higher global energy prices, particularly diesel, were increasing the cost of living and doing business, adding to the challenges confronting African companies.

“So I think most economies thought it would be transitory, short term, come to an end and move on. But we can see now that that kind of Middle Eastern power balance is such that this is going to be on a long term basis.

“We’re going to see energy prices being volatile and uncertain. That has meant that most economies have seen an uptick in cost of living and costs of doing business just on the back of these higher,” Mr Blackmore said.