Dive Brief:
- CEO plans for expansion are cooling, likely because of artificial intelligence and uncertainty brought by the Iran war, according to Q1 2026 data collected by CEO coaching organization Vistage.
- Just over half of CEOs said they plan to increase headcount in the year ahead, down from 57% in Q4 2025. A small portion (14%) said they will delay hiring or hold roles open as they balance expenses and revenue expectations.
- About a third (34%) of CEOs said they are weighing how to incorporate AI into hiring.
Dive Insight:
Entering 2026, CEOs were prepared for a year of growth and a more stable economy, Joe Galvin, Vistage's chief research officer, said in a statement last Tuesday; “However, the unanticipated Iran War has left CEOs once again facing an uncertain future.”
Gavin suggested business leaders revisit their plans and work to remain resilient amid the changes.
AI similarly has created uncertainty in workforce planning. Beyond integrating AI into the hiring process, 1 in 5 CEOs said they assess AI skills in the interview process. A similar number said they’re prioritizing AI-related upskilling for existing workers.
Training could be an increasingly common path as many employers have reported difficulty finding recent graduates with the correct AI skills, a study from Pearson and Amazon Web Services indicated. Still, about 4 in 10 said they don’t factor AI into hiring at all, according to Vistage.
This finding comes at a time when, anecdotally, workplace stakeholders are vocal about how top-down AI use can chip away at worker trust. Despite AI tools becoming table stakes for both job-seekers and employers, one upskilling expert wrote in an op-ed for HR Dive, “the stakes for building trust in this technology and establishing best practices for use have never been higher.”
