80% of business leaders not ready for AI, says KPMG

The 2024 KPMG CEO Outlook on preparedness to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their workspaces, shows that 80 percent of business leaders are not ready to invest in AI. 

The outlook, which interviewed 50 business leaders across East Africa, indicates that 80 percent of leaders believe that strategic investment in AI will need to upskill existing employees and reallocation of resources.

“Eight out of 10 CEOs in East Africa, consistent with their Africa and global counterparts, agree that AI’s investments in the next three years will not drastically cut jobs but will necessitate upskilling and reallocating resources,” the outlook reads in part, noting that responses from business leaders reflected optimism of enhancing human skills and focus on a shift in technology.

“A palpable uncertainty looms among leadership regarding their teams’ readiness. Only 20 percent of CEOs in East Africa and across Africa compared to 38 percent globally agree that they are confident in their employees having the right skills to leverage the benefits of AI. This gap in technological and talent expertise presents a challenge and strident call to action,” the report adds.

While presenting the findings, Mr Asad Lukwago, the KPMG partner audit, said CEOs had also expressed lack of confidence in their readiness to prevent cyber-attacks and entrusting work to a generation that lacks patience.

However, he noted it was interesting that most business leaders had embraced environmental, social, and ethical governance principles in their workplaces to attract.

Mr Lukwago also said East African business leaders feel that the young generation needs to be trained in resilience and handling challenges.

Thus, he said it was time for business leaders to invest in both technology and upskilling employees to prepare them for the coming changes.

“Five years ago, ESG was little known [but] today, CEOs are using it to [for] employee engagement and proposition, attract talent, build customer relationship and brand association,” he said.