Solvd CIO & CTO insights: AI research 2025
AI is progressing too quickly to be controlled, yet the benefits are too valuable to halt its adoption. As a result, technology leaders face an unprecedented dilemma when they need to balance the need to adopt AI and demonstrate tangible results, while doing so ethically and without reputational risks. This research was conducted among 500 U.S. CIOs and CTOs at companies with a minimum annual revenue of $500M and uncovers the four main aspects of the current market state: ethical AI implementation gap, the governance challenge, economic uncertainty and ROI under leadership pressure.
To explore these dynamics, this research examines what CIOs and CTOs think of the potential for AI regulation, how their companies work (or don’t) on ensuring their AI deployment and use is ethical and how economic uncertainty plays into these concerns.
Key takeaways
- 97% of CIOs and CTOs worry about AI ethics, yet only 38% have oversight in place
- 87% believe too much regulation will limit innovation, but 61% still favor government oversight
- 54% of leaders are very concerned about the recession, while 50% are accelerating AI investments
- 71% say executive leadership has unrealistic expectations about AI’s ROI
