C-Suite Outlook 2025: Priorities for CMOs and CCOs

Denise Dahlhoff: Welcome to C-Suite Perspectives, a signature series by The Conference Board. 

I'm Denise Dahlhoff, the Director of Research for the Marketing and Communications Center.  

Ivan Pollard: And I'm Ivan Pollard, Center Leader for Marketing and Communications at The Conference Board. Today, we will discuss the data from the latest C-Suite Outlook survey and what it might mean to those in marketing and communications. 

Overview of the Annual C-Suite Outlook Survey 

Ivan Pollard: But Denise, let's start with a little background on this annual survey.  

Denise Dahlhoff:So as you mentioned, Ivan, it's an annual survey. This year, we ran it for the 26th time, and we always survey CEOs and other C-Suite executives from around the world, including leaders of marketing and communications. 

This year, we had a really strong sample. We had more than 1,700 executives globally, including a little bit more than 500 CEOs and almost 300 chief marketing officers, chief communications officers, and C-level executives in related roles, such as strategy, customer experience, and so forth. 

The goal of the survey is really to capture the perspectives of CEOs and other C-Suite executives around what they see are the challenges and opportunities in the year ahead, and how they are preparing for that and leveraging that environment for their strategies. So it really is supposed to help our members to compare themselves and also maybe gain some inspiration from other companies, how they are tackling what's ahead. 

Ivan Pollard: Nicely put. I think that's a really good thing for people to think about.  

Global Perspectives on AI 

Denise Dahlhoff: And let me actually ask you first.One of the really hot topics this year is obviously AI. What did the survey highlight about the global perspective on AI?  

Ivan Pollard: Well, you're right. AI was one of the recurring topics across— we ask around 15, 16 questions, and it kept bubbling to the top in almost every bracket. 

But as you said, this is a global survey and the global perspective on AI. So we will talk, "What can we learn from the world?" Although we do have data that cuts to different regional levels.  

AI Adoption and Usage Statistics 

Ivan Pollard: Just to give you a perspective. So first of all, we're seeing really high usage in some markets. So 98% of those in responding in India and China, for instance, are saying that they are now actively using AI. Interestingly, only 84% of the US companies responding said the same thing. The people who are using it the most are the CMO/CCO bracket that you talked about. So 95% of our global survey are sayingthey're actively using it. 

Interestingly, the second highest is the CFO. So 93% of them are using it, and the lowest is the CHRO, at 86%. So remember, global survey. So it may be drifted a little by and biased a little by the sample sizes in each place. The other thing that's interesting is, as you'd expect, 94%, the biggest people using it are the big companies, those of billions of dollars or more. But 79% of the smaller companies under $100 million are also using it. 

So know that it's getting used everywhere. And that acceleration is one of the things we predicted. And we'll talk about that a little later on.  

Just to dive into what people are seeing from it. Last year, when we asked, there was a great expectation for productivity. And in fact, we're seeing 44% of CEOs, for instance, are saying they're already seeing productivity gains in the workforce. 

For the CMO, 31% saying productivity, 30% saying innovation, 19% already seeing a return on marketing investment as a result of AI. So upsides are there. They're not hitting the expectations yet, but they are starting to develop. And of course, there are headwinds that are holding us back. 

So for those in marketing and communications, the largest concern, 34% of people saying this, is the quality of the output of the AI tools that they're using. That's not just generative AI,it's all the tools. And underneath the second- and third- highest worries are lack of expertise in AI, an application to marketing, and also concerns around data, privacy, and security.  

So the CMO/CCO teams are leading in AI. It'd be interesting for me to ask you, Denise, where did the respondents see AI in the broader view of where they'll be spending their money and increasing investment this year? 

It's not the only thing that they're going to spend on, right?  

Marketing and Communication Investments 

Denise Dahlhoff:That's correct. But AI is certainly really dominant in both marketing and communications. And you mentioned it already, Ivan, the marketing and communications teams are among the leading users and companies of AI. So no surprise here. So let me start talking a little bit about the marketing investments that companies are planning for this year. 

Number one, very firmly, it's on data analytics. Probably no surprise. Number two is new-product development, and that it really aligns with company's plans also to focus on innovation this year to foster growth. And, of course, the chief marketing officer and their team are responsible for helping promote growth. So maybe no surprise here, then, that new-product development is the number two investment item for marketers.  

In number three and four, we have customer experience/customer service, as well as brand building and advertising. Now, this is really interesting because both of those—customer experience and brand building, advertising—they suggest there is a longer-term focus as well, right? To keep customers happy, to attract new customers, to establish the brand. And on the brand building, we actually saw an interesting trend between 2023 to last year, 2024. That really jumped in investments, which is really good news for, again, the long term, the sustainability of a brand in the long term.  

Largely, these four items that I mentioned, —all this digital tech, Innovation on products, customer experience, and brand—we saw that also last year. It has shifted a little bit. Now AI is more important and innovation, but largely it's the same. What is a little lower on the list, which is interesting, is attribution and performance measurement in marketing. We learned in a separate project last year, on the evolving role of the chief marketing officer, that, especially, showing performance, ideally in financial terms, is really important for the CEO, the CFO, and other executives. And also to communicate it even to your colleagues in the company. So that's a little bit lower on the list, maybe a reminder to not make that a blind spot to forget about that because of all these other priorities. 

 There is an interesting point about Europe and Asia, that sustainable products and services are also quite important investment item in those geographies.  

Now on the com side, again, no surprise, number one is AI for communications. And number two is what I just said about sustainability. Sustainability communications are especially important in those two geographies, Asia and Europe.  

And then we get to two items developing corporate strategy and performance measurement, that really reflect the more strategic role of the chief communicator and their team. So, giving input in corporate strategy by tracking reputation, by tracking issues that are going on in the world, by preparing for those issues to preempt them becoming a crisis, for example, and measuring performance. You want to know how the company is viewed by all kinds of stakeholders at any point in time. And knowing how your communications campaigns are actually received and how they are working. So, again, it's a more strategic kind of work.  

What was a little surprising was that employee communications were not as much of an investment item. And that's a little bit of a contradiction to what we have seen in other research we have done, including on the role of the chief communications officer, where we have learned that the CEO actually wants their CCO to focus way more on employee communications and building internal culture. That's actually among the top three priorities for the CEO.  

So seeing this here lower on the list is a little surprising, but there might be two explanations for that. One might be that this,it's a shift of focus that doesn't require funds. You move the existing resources on your comms team to internal comms. That could be one. The second one is again, our friend AI. AI might also help increase productivity in communications. For example, using AI to transcribe an internal presentation that then can be converted into, I don't know, a memo, a little video, or something else. So it saves resources on the comms team. That could be another explanation. That's, in a nutshell, the investments into marketing and communications.  

Ivan Pollard:That's a big nutshell. So, I should tell people, by this time next week, you probably should be able to access the documents that Denise has just talked about with the data in it are online. 

But yeah, Denise, you made two really interesting points in that. One is the idea, as you said at the beginning, this is 26 years annually running. So to be able to look at the shifts, the subtle shifts from year to year, we've always seen digital transformation being there, but what it means will be something different every year. 

And we've also watched the kind of theups and downs of advertising or promotions or innovation and product. Kind of development and new market development. It's always useful to have a look at those. And the second you mentioned was the CEO and being able to plot against what the CEO is thinking about, too. 

So thank you for doing that. So, sorry, back to you on the AI.  

Internal Priorities and Change Management  

Denise Dahlhoff: Sure. So given that AI is such a huge topic for companies, also, in adopting it and implementing it in companies, let me go back to that topic. And let me ask you again about AI and change management. We heard at various events throughout last year that AI is really a change management issue. What does the C-Suite Outlook survey say in terms of the internal priorities for their companies regarding AI and change management?  

Ivan Pollard: Yeah, I think one of the emerging themes here is that we're seeing AI woven into almost everything. Can AI make internal communications more cost effective? Yeah, sure. 

For instance, translating everything into languages around the world. So AI is actually embedded in a lot of what we're going to talk about. And when you think about AI, the tools themselves are one thing, but getting people using them and getting them working for you is the other. Sowe've heard people talk about some of our events and conferences and roundtables. 

But this is almost like a design thinking issue and a cultural engineering issue. And so the management of change and the learning and the education across the entire organization back from top to bottom and bottom to top. —that'sactually a big challenge, and you see it reflected in the C-Suite Outlook survey. 

 So as you mentioned, the CEO perspective is really useful. So when they're thinking about the internal challenges for the company, their number one is operational resilience. Second is reducing costs. Third is attracting and retaining talent. And fourth, 36% of them picking as one of their top two issues is, of course, AI. But you could argue that those things,allfour, are interconnected. So I guess how to implement AI is the real question. And again, accelerating the development of AI and digital transformation is the top priority when you ask people what they're going to focus on. 

The CEO is also disproportionately going to be thinking about costs and enhancing people productivity. When you think about that —actually, it's also reflected, we asked a question about what skills will become more important in 2025 for leaders across the organization. And change management, it's not the top. AI, as you said, it's always going to be top. They hit 41% of CMOs/CCOs pick AI and tech and data knowledge as their top thing. Innovative thinking, as you said, is second, and those kind of recur. But the third is change management skills. And we don't usually see that as high on the list over the years. 

So change management is super important. And then the things that they're going to be focusing on inside. So your tech knowledge, your ability to think differently and find innovation, and this ability to manage change management. You also see fourth, which we'll come back to a little bit later, is for the CMO and the CCO to improve their business acumen and their financial knowledge. 

So that's what the company's thinking about inside. What about outside, Denise? What are the pressure factors from outside that are making the CMO and CCO think differently? 

External Pressure Factors 

Denise Dahlhoff: Sure, I think you can summarize them into three big buckets. The first one are economic concerns. So that includes economic downturns. 

Marketers and communicators are really, especially the marketers, are very concerned about inflation, still, and also changing customer buying habits, right? That'sprobably a constant issue for our marketers and communicators, but that really bubbled to the top. So that's the first bucket, economic concerns. 

Then we have the group of political instability and uncertainty. The US-China tensions, all those types of political and geopolitical challenges we have.Wars going on in the world. They affect supply chains. Also, customers and employees. So, that's another big bucket. 

The third one is, we go back to AI, but let me talk about a little bit of a different aspect. So we are obviously now in a different phase of AI, right? At least the 2.0 version or maybe 3.0 by now. And it's more than, you talked about implementation and change management internally, but it's also companies are now looking beyond that. They are thinking about competitors, how do they use AI? How do customers, suppliers, and so forth use AI? Then the other topic is, the people that are not meaning well, the people that create a trust issue, they create misinformation and deep fakes and so forth. So AI largely, as a rapidly developing technology that companies have to figure out how to leverage and to also protect themselves against any bad things. 

And I would add maybe a fourth factor, just for a certain geo or, not just, but in particular, for two geographies, Europe and Asia, which is sustainability. That's really a big topic there, as well. It could be because of regulations, but also customer and investor interest in those topics that might be a little bit higher. In the US, we see it a little bit, but it's definitely stronger in Asia and Europe. 

Ivan Pollard:That's great. We're going to come back and talk about sustainability in a moment, but we're going to take a short break and be right back with more discussion between Denise and I on the insights from the C-Suite Outlook 2025: Seizing the Future. 

Denise Dahlhoff: Welcome back to the C-Suite Perspectives podcast. We are discussing the implications of the findings from The Conference Board C-Suite Outlook 2025. And we were talking about external issues that the chief marketing officer, the chief communications officer, and the CEO feel will have the greatest impact on their business this year. 

Ivan Pollard: Denise, that's really interesting. You talked about those four buckets, the economy as a whole, the changing habits of the consumer, the technology, and even sustainability.  

Skills for Future CMOs and CCOs 

Ivan Pollard: And it makes me think, as I was talking about the skills that we saw emerging in the survey, about some work that you did in the summer, interviewing people and taking qualitative, as well as quantitative, aspects together about the skills of the future CMO. 

So what did you learn?  

Denise Dahlhoff:Yeah, so that was really interesting to compare the two lists of skills, from this research, from the C-Suite Outlook, to the research we did last year on the chief marketing and chief communications officer. I would say largely it's very consistent. Let me just recap what the four ones that you mentioned bubbled to the top this time. For the C-Suite Outlook, it was tech, data, and AI. We definitely saw that in our research on CMOs and CCOs, as well.  

You mentioned innovative thinking and change management, as well as business acumen. And that also ran through our findings last year, but I would say business acumen, I think any C-level position now is expected to not just bring their functional or subject matter expertise, but be really a business person. That definitely, we saw that, as well.What came out higher in the C-Suite Outlook is really innovative thinking and change management. Innovative thinking or innovation, that's also a staple for the marketers. And we saw that last year, it wasn't quite as high. So I would say now it'sreally high. It's a good reminder for marketers to think innovation.  

But really, change management that came out lower on marketers' list in our research on the CMO, and generally, soft skills for the marketer. We talked about all these tech skills, there's a lot of science in there right now, a lot of technical knowledge that is needed, but in addition, marketers can forget all these soft skills, change management, collaboration, and so forth, relationship building. They do that anyway, but you know, they are so focused on many other things drawn in many directions.  

And for the communicators. Innovative thinking or innovation was definitely lower on the list in the research we did this past year on the CCO.So that's probably a really good reminder that innovation is so important these days in any function, especially with these big changes and uncertainties happening. 

And then I would say, one potential blind spot, talent management came out lower on the list. both the C-Suite Outlook this year, and also in our research last year on the CMO and CCO. It was a little higher for the marketers last year, reflecting the overflowing plate of the CMO. They need like a senior people on their team to help them do everything they have to do. For the communicators, it was lower. At the same time, we also hear from members and we know from other studies, that succession is actually an issue, right? Talent, getting talent, the right talent on your team. 

So I would flag that as a thing to pay attention to, to manage talent and develop talent, to not make that an issue in the future.  

Ivan Pollard: I think that's a great point. I think innovation has always been there for the marketers and the communicators. And, of course, they have to have the core fundamental skills, as well. For instance, for a marketer, pricing strategy or market segmentation or product development, or obviously, different ways of promoting your brand and your service. But I think those soft skills you talked about, like talent management and change management and the ability to drive culture and buy-in, those things are super-interesting.  

And you can find more of that in Denise's work. As we said, a very big qualitative survey. There are quite a number of papers online. You can access them on our website for the ones that are public. For our members, they can access all of them and you can find them at Conference Board dot org. So go on there.  

Sustainability and Regional Differences 

Ivan Pollard:Let's just go back to one other thing that I think is surprising. For some, the sustainability strategy is still so high on the things that people are thinking about, especially in the light of a lot of the pushback that we're hearing just in general, in the news, and from people, the pushback against companies being focused on sustainability. 

What are your thoughts on that?  

Denise Dahlhoff: Yeah, it's really interesting.What we see, sustainability is definitely here to stay.It's a topic that companies are dealing with, especially as I mentioned earlier, in Europe and Asia. However, we also see in the US, for example, one of the factors there that US companies are focused on are climate events. That has been an issue in the US, and that can definitely affect businesses in a big way. So that also was higher in the US.  

Generally, ESG regulations and disclosures are on companies' minds. It'sa big thing, and it would probably, overall, become more.So definitely that's a task for companies, which was really interesting to see for our group of chief marketers and communicators. They also, what was really a big factor for them are advances in energy technology that they see will have a great impact. 

And again, going back to AI, our group of marketers and communicators, they are interested advances in these energy technologies because they need AI, right? And AI is very energy intensive. So that was quite interesting. And when you then look at the priorities for companies that they look at on the environmental and the social side, what bubbles to the top here is the same thing. Renewable energy and energy transition, going back to these advances in energy technology, probably no surprise.  

On social aspects, there were two topics that are pretty consistent across the world, which are economic opportunity and education. Those are the top two priorities for companies on the social side. Now on number three and four, which are working conditions/workers rights and gender equality, that is more of a topic in Asia and Europe, less so in the US. On gender equality, it could be because the US is fairly advanced already compared to other geographies.  

On the climate side or environmental side, it was very interesting why sustainability as a whole is not as important to companies. Yes, climate resilience and adaptation to all these crazy weather events is much more of a US company thing compared to other geographies. So that was really interesting. So again, we see big geographic differences, but that's so important for global companies to be aware of—that even big topics can be very different from one global region to the other. 

Ivan Pollard: Fascinating.  

Conclusion and Key Takeaways 

Denise Dahlhoff: So, Ivan, let me ask you, if you could leave people with one big reason why they should read the report on the C-Suite Outlook 2025, what would that be?  

Ivan Pollard: Well, I think you kind of hinted at it earlier. If I put it in two very brief words, it's "course correction." Because everybody's in charge of where they're going themselves, but it's always good to triangulate and calibrate your direction against those of others. 

So seeing what others are thinking, whether that's another company, another region, another officer like the CEO, that always helps you navigate. And correction can mean slightly changing your course. It can also mean proving to yourself that you are correct. That would be my push for why people should read it. 

And of course, as I mentioned, it's published after January the 17th, and it will be on our website, and everybody can access it there. So please go.  

What do you think the big takeaways from our conversation have been, Denise?  

Denise Dahlhoff:So number one, AI, clearly, we have talked about it a lot. But I would highlight the aspect that Ivan mentioned earlier, that marketing and communications are leading users of AI in companies and therefore can serve as role models and also internal consultants. Maybe number two is, I would say, adaptability and agility in this world of rapid changes regarding technology, geopolitics, and so forth. And number three, innovation. That's an evergreen growth vehicle, but even more important in this environment. And AI and other factors are a really big opportunity at this point in time.  

Ivan Pollard:That's fascinating, Denise, and actually, all of that work is accessible on the website. You can use the links that are posted on the page that you found this podcast on, and you can go and read those papers. Some of them are public; all of them are accessible to our members. 

So please go and have a look at them.It's interesting work, and it correlates to what it is we're seeing in the C-Suite Outlook survey. 

Denise Dahlhoff: Let me close by saying thanks to all of you for listening to C-Suite Perspectives. I'm Denise Dahlhoff, and this series has been brought to you by The Conference Board.