APAC CEOs outpace global peers in AI confidence, IBM study reveals

According to Juhi McClelland, Managing Director of IBM Consulting APAC, APAC CEOs are very aggressive in experimentation, especially among mid to large-size companies.

Findings from IBM’s Global CEO study recently revealed that APAC CEOs outpace global peers when it comes to AI confidence. Specifically, the study revealed that 72% of APAC CEOs are comfortable making major strategic decisions based on AI-generated insights compared to 64% globally.

With 63% of APAC CEOs believing AI can make operational and tactical decisions more effectively than people, it's no surprise why the Asia Pacific region continues to lead in AI adoption with countries like Singapore dominating AI use cases development and deployment.

Interestingly, the study also revealed that CEOs feel that AI adoption is critical to be ahead of the competition. 76% of APAC CEOs say the risk of falling behind is driving them to invest in some technologies before they have a clear understanding of the value they bring.

According to Juhi McClelland, Managing Director of IBM Consulting APAC, APAC CEOs are very aggressive in experimentation, especially among mid to large-size companies. While most businesses in the region stared with Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), many are now moving towards intelligent business operations and are eager to drive new growth.

“The CEO study has really encouraged all of us to rethink how AI can be applied more as a business value versus just an IT conversation. So it could be a completely new business model conversation. It's also important that for our region we move with speed and clarity because that could give our region a huge competitive advantage to help us move forward,” McClelland said.

With customer service dominating AI use cases, McClelland also mentioned that IBM is seeing very strong AI deployment in the region in procurement, supply chain, financial management, HR and also in software for writing code through solutions like IBM Bob.

IBM Bob is an AI-first development partner built for enterprise teams. With the global availability announced in April this year, Bob doesn’t just help developers write code fast. It works across the full SLDC, from planning and coding to testing, deployment, and modernization, with the governance and security controls enterprises need.

The future workforce

Looking at the impact of AI on the workforce, the study revealed that 85% of APAC CEOs see AI success depends more on employee adoption than the technology itself. Between 2026 and 2028, APAC respondents expect 29% of employees to require reskilling for a different role, and 53% need upskilling to perform their current role more effectively.

76% of APAC respondents also say talent and technology leadership roles are converging, suggesting tighter integration between talent, technology and enterprise strategy.

For organizations in the region, this is where the role of the Chief AI Officer gains prominence as well. The study revealed that APAC CEOs expect to see the role’s influence to increase through 2030, alongside rising influence across every member of the C-suite.

While the role has become significantly important in the past three years, McClelland explained that the role has emerged in different places and what’s interesting is that it’s not just buried in the technology space.

“Where I'm seeing that role be effective is where it's not just buried in the technology space, because AI is around carrying the business team with you. So the role of the Chief AI Officer, if done properly, where they have not only power over AI experimentation and models, but also have influence over business models, changing new ways of working to make employees better by infusing AI, will be more powerful. But if it’s the role is in the narrow range of experimentation and education of AI, then it's sort of a marginal role. It's really upon us to help drive that importance and power and where they reside in the organization,” McClelland explained.

The need for AI sovereignty

AI sovereignty is becoming an extremely important area in APAC as governments and regulators continue to mandate how data can be used for testing and deploying AI use cases.

For McClelland, it’s a constant conversation with all C-suite leaders around the the importance of sovereignty.

“You can't just peanut butter spread the need for sovereignty, because that'll slow us down. There is data that can be used, there are large language models that are very good to be used, depending on the industry. The regulated industries require more data traceability. We are also seeing customers customize the data from the large language models for their use by providing some guardrails. And the models are emerging more in that space,” she explained.

With data sovereignty regulatory requirements getting better, the really differentiated areas that are emerging is where data is being used as a competitive advantage. As every industry has a different set of data, McClelland believes that the whole need for sovereign is very high.

“Governments are playing a pretty positive role. We're seeing that they develop their own large language models that speak their language literally and legally. So I do think over the next three to five years, this is going to be even more ample. Actually, I would say now it's already there, but it's also been further amplified by the regulators, the government advancement in models, and understanding of how to segment data, whether it's for reporting, competitive advantage, or it's just to run the business. You need different guardrails for all those different things,” she added.

IBM’s role

Despite APAC CEOs having the highest confidence in AI, McClelland also believes that there is still al lot of room to use AI for productivity.

“We have not arrived there yet. So, we are advising a lot of clients on how they can find operational productivity to create the room that they need to innovate because the money is finite. Even if they're growing very fast, they still need to find money to invest in their new products and new services,” she said.

Looking at IBM as a client zero example, McClelland pointed out that the tech giant achieved US$4.5 billion in productivity savings and learned a lot from embedding AI.

“We have 490 workflows in IBM and 100 of them are AI-first now. And that's what helped us achieve this $4.5 billion in productivity. So we are sharing those across HR, procurement, and supply chain, with clients here. That then is freeing up money and it's also freeing up people to then do more innovative work. So, there's a lot of opportunity to bring innovation and we're working with our clients on skills development, education, new business model ideas,” she explained.

At the same time, McClelland also pointed out that there needs to be a lot work done in trust and governance.

“We are advising our clients and actually building it for them because we are the only consulting company in a tech company. We don't just talk about it. We can actually build it and show it to them and that's of huge value to our clients,” she added.

Another area where IBM is helping customers is dealing with the hurdles in the workforce when it comes to AI adoption.

“If you just apply AI to your existing workflows, you'll get value, but how do you flip things on its head? And I think that's some of the biggest hurdles we're experiencing, because that requires culture and getting the people with you. The whole cultural aspect of reimagining your workflows is taking time. These are the three mega conversations that are strategic that are happening right now,” she concluded.