Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said on the 16th that it published its "AI Radar 2026" report analyzing shifts in artificial intelligence (AI) investment strategies and executive perceptions at global corporations. According to the report, global corporations are sharply expanding AI investments despite economic uncertainty, and AI is moving beyond the experimental phase within IT organizations to become a core management agenda directly overseen by the chief executive officer (CEO).
According to the report, those surveyed plan to double their AI investment in 2026 from the previous year. The share who said they would continue investing in AI even without short-term results reached 94%. BCG said this shows AI is recognized not merely as a tool for expense reduction or efficiency gains, but as an essential investment area that determines corporations' mid- to long-term growth strategies.
This survey covered 2,360 executives across 10 industries in 16 countries. The results showed that 72% of CEOs said they are directly leading major AI-related decision-making, and more than half recognize that the performance of their AI strategies could directly affect their own management performance evaluations. CEOs actively driving AI transformation were found to devote an average of more than eight hours a week to strengthening their personal understanding of AI and to personally overseeing strategy development and execution.
Christoph Schweizer, BCG CEO, said, "Despite economic uncertainty, the fact that corporations are expanding AI investment shows AI has already moved to the center of business strategy," and added, "AI is no longer confined to IT or innovation organizations; it is becoming a core task that CEOs lead directly across strategy and operations."
BCG noted that neither the scale of AI investment nor executive attention alone can guarantee actual results. According to the report, gaps in AI outcomes among corporations do not stem from whether they adopt the technology, but from organizational structures and talent strategies that can convert it into real competitiveness, as well as how they use AI agents.
Corporations leading AI transformation allocate about 60% of their AI budgets to upskilling and retraining existing staff, more than double the level of latecomers. BCG said the success or failure of AI transformation depends less on the technology itself than on how systematically organizations build the capabilities to use it.
A clear difference also appeared in investments in AI agents. Leading corporations are allocating more than half of their 2026 AI investment budgets to Agentic AI, and about 90% of CEOs expect AI agents to deliver visible results in 2026. Reflecting these expectations, more than 30% of total AI investment is currently being deployed to Agentic AI, it was found.
Sylvain Duranton, global leader of BCG X, said, "True competitive advantage doesn't come from automating individual functions, but from redesigning end-to-end processes and creating new products and services," and added, "Nine out of 10 CEOs see corporations that use AI properly as the standard of success by 2028, showing the market environment is already changing quickly."
An analysis of the Korean market was also presented. Jang Jin-seok, BCG Korea MD partner, said, "Korea is a market where both individuals and corporations learn and use AI very quickly, and as a country dense with large-scale manufacturing and industrial goods corporations, it has great potential to convert AI into real competitiveness," and assessed, "Korean industry has now entered a critical speed zone where AI must be converted from a technology experiment into structural competitiveness." He added, "For domestic corporations to make AI a practical competitive strength, it is most important to embed AI across the organization through top-down leadership led by top management."