Top CEOs are back­ing their busi­ness­es to pros­per in the face of de­clin­ing con­fi­dence in the glob­al econ­o­my, a KP­MG sur­vey of more than 1,300 cor­po­rate lead­ers from across the world finds.

The re­search re­veals that 92 per cent of a sam­ple of glob­al CEOs plan to boost em­ploy­ee head­count over the next three years, the high­est pro­por­tion since 2020. This hir­ing op­ti­mism per­sists de­spite 72 per cent of CEOs feel­ing in­creased pres­sure to en­sure their busi­ness­es’ long-term pros­per­i­ty.

In a news re­lease, Ray­mond Camp­bell, KP­MG’s coun­try leader for Cari­com, which in­cludes T&T, said: “Over the last ten years, CEOs have sought to cre­ate con­fi­dence in a num­ber of ways, no­tably in­creas­ing in­vest­ment in in­no­va­tion and tech, plac­ing peo­ple at the heart of growth strate­gies, and re­new­ing their com­mit­ment to ESG and sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a source of val­ue cre­ation.

“Top threats to growth have shift­ed, with CEO’s cit­ing sup­ply chain chal­lenges and op­er­a­tional is­sues ahead of cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty and last year’s num­ber one threat – geopol­i­tics and po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty. All these is­sues im­pact busi­ness­es in the Caribbean.”

Be­hind eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty (53 per cent), the race to em­brace ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (50 per cent) is the is­sue most top of mind for CEOs to­day. It is clear that most lead­ers are reaf­firm­ing their com­mit­ment to in­crease in­vest­ment in in­no­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing AI, as a dri­ver of growth.

In­deed, 64 per cent iden­ti­fied AI as their top in­vest­ment pri­or­i­ty in 2024, though most are look­ing at it as an in­vest­ment that will pay off in the medi­um term, with 63 per cent ex­pect­ing to see a re­turn on their in­vest­ments with­in the next three to five years.

Mar­co Vas­sal­lo, Part­ner, Dig­i­tal So­lu­tions, KP­MG Is­lands Group said: “AI is poised to rev­o­lu­tionise is­land com­mu­ni­ties by ad­dress­ing their unique chal­lenges and un­lock­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“AI-pow­ered pre­dic­tive an­a­lyt­ics can help is­land busi­ness­es op­ti­mise their op­er­a­tions, such as sup­ply chain man­age­ment and in­ven­to­ry con­trol. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, AI-dri­ven per­son­al­i­sa­tion can en­hance cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ences, lead­ing to in­creased sat­is­fac­tion and loy­al­ty.

“By lever­ag­ing AI, is­land com­mu­ni­ties can im­prove their eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness, at­tract in­vest­ment, and cre­ate a more sus­tain­able fu­ture. AI-dri­ven train­ing and up­skilling pro­grammes can equip the work­force with the nec­es­sary skills to thrive in the dig­i­tal age, ad­dress­ing skill short­ages and fu­ture-proof­ing jobs.

“This is cru­cial for ad­dress­ing the unique chal­lenges faced by is­land-based op­er­a­tors with lim­it­ed lo­cal mar­kets and re­sources, en­abling them to tap in­to glob­al mar­kets and com­pete ef­fec­tive­ly by in­creas­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty through au­toma­tion and op­ti­mi­sa­tion.

“To ful­ly re­alise the ben­e­fits of AI, it is es­sen­tial for is­land com­mu­ni­ties to con­duct thor­ough AI readi­ness as­sess­ments. These as­sess­ments will eval­u­ate the ma­tu­ri­ty of the or­gan­i­sa­tion or sec­tor with re­spect to AI, iden­ti­fy po­ten­tial chal­lenges, and de­vel­op a roadmap for suc­cess­ful AI adop­tion. By tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach to AI readi­ness, is­land com­mu­ni­ties can en­sure that they are well-po­si­tioned to har­ness the pow­er of AI and dri­ve sus­tain­able growth.”