Pearl Meyer survey reveals C-suite executives and their boards disagree on who owns AI strategy—signaling dysfunction at the top of major companies

A Pearl Meyer survey found a gap: company boards believe the CEO and executive team should own AI strategy, but those executives say they don't—or aren't clear on who does. This disagreement suggests confusion and misalignment at the highest decision-making level, not a lack of AI technology.

The real bottleneck isn't technical (missing tools or compute power). It's organizational: senior leadership teams aren't functioning smoothly enough to make decisions together, set priorities, or hold each other accountable for AI initiatives. This kind of friction at the C-suite level typically cascades down—projects stall, budgets get misallocated, and initiatives get abandoned.

For business professionals and investors, this matters because it signals execution risk. A company with clear AI governance and aligned leadership moves faster and captures more value; companies where the CEO, CFO, and COO are confused about who owns AI strategy tend to waste resources and miss market windows. If you work at or invest in a company, this is a warning sign to ask: does your C-suite have a shared AI mandate?