2026 Canadian CEO Survey

Key findings

Canadian CEOs’ confidence in the Canadian economy has dropped since last year, but they’re relatively confident in their own company’s prospects.

Most Canadian CEOs are worried about US trade policy and tariffs, with one-third believing tariffs will reduce their company’s profit margin over the next year.

Canadian CEOs are starting to implement AI enterprise-wide, but to catch up with global peers, they must commit fully to tactical measures needed to do so successfully.

Canadian CEOs are more likely than global CEOs to have begun competing in a new sector in the past five years, and these moves are starting to pay off.

“For the first time in over five years, Canadian CEO sentiment is moving in the opposite direction of global optimism. The headwinds in Canada—trade uncertainty, tariff pressures, and slower adoption of transformative technologies like AI—are significant. But they’re also a catalyst. We’re seeing Canadian companies rise to the challenge by entering new sectors to build resilience and unlock growth.”

Nicolas Marcoux, CEO, PwC Canada

Pulse check: How are Canadian CEOs feeling about future growth?

Our 29th Global CEO Survey highlights how CEOs around the world are reinventing their companies with technology and looking for growth opportunities in new sectors, even as they see threats ahead. The 133 Canadian CEOs who took part in our survey are also focused on how to lead through uncertainty. But our Canadian results point to a few notable differences, both in terms of perception of exposure to threats and actions taken to prepare.

Canadian CEOs are significantly more concerned than their global peers about making sure their company remains viable in the medium to long term. And at the time our survey was in the field, before recent US military intervention in Venezuela, Canadian CEOs were already more concerned than their global counterparts about a geopolitical event causing major disruption. This is unsurprising, given how exposed many Canadian companies have been in the last year—and will likely continue to be—to trade volatility.

41%

of Canadian CEOs rank doing enough to ensure their company remains viable in the medium to long term in their top three concerns (versus 29% of global CEOs)

35%

of Canadian CEOs rank a geopolitical event causing major disruption in their top three concerns (versus 21% of global CEOs)

Every year, we ask CEOs how confident they are about economic growth in the coming year. This year, while global CEOs are generally optimistic about global economic growth, they’re less confident in many countries about local economic growth.

Here in Canada, CEOs are following a similar trajectory. Almost half (47%) of Canadian CEOs believe global economic growth will improve in the next year, and only 27% believe Canadian economic growth will improve in that same period. This is a drop from last year, when 55% of Canadian CEOs believed global economic growth would improve in the coming year, and 42% believed Canadian economic growth would improve. However, it’s important to note that last year’s survey was in the field before it became clear US trade actions against Canada could be imminent.

Many national calls to action have been issued to the business community in Canada in the last year. While there’s some justifiable consternation around the current economic situation, there are flickers of hope.

Canada has been outperforming expectations from the beginning of 2025. And Canadian CEOs remain as confident as their global peers in their own company’s prospects, with 49% of Canadian and global CEOs expecting their company to grow its revenue over the next three years. Canadian CEOs are starting to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) across the enterprise, though not to the same extent as their global counterparts, and they’re moving into new sectors to capture new business opportunities. But they’ll need to continue to act decisively to maintain this momentum and confront economic headwinds to come.

Canadian CEOs continue to recalibrate amid trade uncertainty

The last year has been what we could call a year of adjustment. Canadians across the country have been trying to figure out how long US-driven global trade uncertainty might last—and how severe and lasting the effects of tariffs might be.

After a year, uncertainty persists. Even though markets have adjusted and we’ve seen a reduction in overall volatility, many questions linger about the extent to which Canadian companies will continue to be exposed to trade changes amid upcoming Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) renegotiations.

53%

of Canadian CEOs are concerned about the impact of US trade policy on their company

This uncertainty comes through loud and clear in our survey findings. More than half (53%) of Canadian CEOs are concerned or very concerned about the impact of US trade policy and tariffs on their company’s operations or growth. Notably, only 10% aren’t concerned at all. Slightly more than one-third (35%) of Canadian CEOs think tariffs will reduce their company’s profit margin in the next year.

Actions for Canadian CEOs

Events of the last year are more than a cyclical disruption. They’re part of structural changes to the global economy and trade. In addition to upcoming CUSMA renegotiations, conversations are happening with other major trading partners that will have significant, long-term business and investment ramifications when it comes to markets for Canadian products.

We haven’t yet seen Canadian businesses pivot to what a global trading system with a reconfigured flow of goods, services, and capital could look like—in part because it continues to change. Despite the difficulty of doing so amid uncertainty, organizations need to step off the sidelines and lean into strategic planning to navigate between immediate volatility and long-term reconfiguration.

When it comes to CUSMA renegotiations, a new set of investment opportunities and risks will likely emerge in sectors at the intersection of geopolitical rivalry and protectionist policy. To reach a trade agreement, the Canadian government will need to make more concessions than it already has. But what trade-offs will the government be willing to make? And which sectors will be the most directly impacted?

As industries continue to be disrupted by governments competing to secure strategic sectors and supply chains, reindustrialize economies, and rebalance trade, we’ll likely see some market distortion. Particularly in focus for Canada and Canadian companies will be efforts related to critical technology, industrial supply chain reconfiguration related to vehicles, medical, and pharma-linked sectors, and other more traditional trade friction points.

While many Canadian organizations understood the need to invest in productivity-enhancing tech in the last year and acted accordingly, they now need to make sure they’re getting the expected return on investment. Organizations also should consider the extent to which they’re aligning with the public policy conversation around increasing productivity. For example, how are they positioning themselves to take advantage of the Productivity Super-Deduction included in the recent Canadian federal budget measures?

In the past few decades, many organizations improved their profitability by gaining scale. But as global trade and geopolitical dynamics change, organizations will need to stay nimble and manage risk in a new way to achieve growth. Crisis management can only last so long. Organizations must shift into a reinvention mindset and be more diligent about stress-testing their assumptions and readiness for different types of geopolitically driven economic events.

Canadian CEOs still skeptical of committing fully to AI implementation

Just like global CEOs, Canadian CEOs are seeing the potential to implement AI across the enterprise. This year, both globally and in Canada, the same number (94%) of CEOs say they’ve used AI at least to a limited extent across the five business areas we asked about: direction setting; support services; products, services, and experiences; demand generation; and demand fulfillment.

But when we look at organizations that have gone all in, a gap emerges. Only 29% of Canadian CEOs say their organization has applied AI to a large extent in these five areas, compared to 43% of global CEOs.

We can see some of the reasons for this lag when we dig deeper into our Canadian survey data. A majority of Canadian CEOs whose organizations have applied AI at least to a limited extent say the culture of their organization enables AI adoption and their organization’s tech environment enables AI integration. But Canadian CEOs are falling short in some of the more tactical measures needed to successfully implement AI enterprise-wide. This includes a clearly defined roadmap for AI initiatives and formalized responsible AI and risk processes.

72%

of Canadian CEOs whose organizations have applied AI say the culture of their organization enables AI adoption (versus 69% of global CEOs)

37%

of Canadian CEOs whose organizations have applied AI say their organization has a clearly defined roadmap for AI initiatives (versus 51% of global CEOs)

Actions for Canadian CEOs

What’s keeping Canadian companies from fully committing to all the measures needed to effectively implement AI? We’re still seeing skepticism around the return on investment. This is, in part, because many Canadian CEOs continue to look at AI implementation as simply a productivity cost-cutting exercise. They see the technology and data consumption costs, but they’re missing the bigger picture about how AI could disrupt their business and sector more broadly.

Most companies start to see initial value from using AI to strengthen the backbone of their organization and improve the way they operate. But it’s critical to also look at opportunities to use AI as a tool to create new top-line value for your organization.

Data from this year’s survey shows that global leaders—those achieving both additional revenues and lower costs from AI—are the furthest ahead in building strong AI foundations. An essential part of a strong AI foundation is skilled employees equipped with and trained on how to use emerging tools.

Many Canadian companies are investing in upskilling their people to use AI. But to see better returns on these investments, organizations need to be strategic about the type of AI professionals they’d like their employees to become and then act accordingly. Upskilling philosophies range from providing credentials to employees via tools such as digital badges to putting AI tools in employees’ hands and making their day-to-day environment the training.

Global leaders are also deploying AI more deeply across different areas of the business. Isolated, tactical AI projects often don’t deliver measurable value. Tangible returns come from enterprise-level deployment consistent with company business strategy. To allow AI to scale in this way, Canadian organizations must commit to standardizing and integrating their operating model and workflows.

In Canada, sovereign AI is emerging as a core part of our national economic and security strategy. To strengthen economic and security independence, Canada will need to create its own infrastructure to power its compute capacity and AI. In the coming year, we expect to see substantial, accelerated investments by the private and public sectors to build AI ecosystems and capture a share of the trillions of dollars in capital expenditure being made in data centres globally.

Canadian organizations must assess what role they can play in the national strategy to increase security, competitiveness, and economic and business resilience.

Canadian CEOs making strides in exploring new sectors

In last year’s report, we explored the productivity gap between Canadian and global organizations and the actions Canadian CEOs should take to reinvent how and where they compete.

This year’s survey findings show progress. Canadian CEOs are more optimistic than their global peers about how prepared they are to take advantage of opportunities coming out of disruption. They’re also significantly more likely than their global counterparts to have moved their company into new sectors in the last five years.

37%

of Canadian CEOs say their C-suite has prepared their organization to capture new business opportunities that arise from disruption (versus 29% of global CEOs)

56%

of Canadian CEOs say their company has begun competing in new sectors or industries in which it hadn’t previously competed in the last five years (versus 42% of global CEOs)

Playing an active role in industry reconfiguration is beginning to pay off. Among the Canadian CEOs whose organizations have expanded into new sectors, 35% say their company has earned 20% or more of its revenue in the past five years from that expansion.

Actions for Canadian CEOs

There are still substantial gains to be made as tariff pressures and AI-led disruption continue to reshape industries and new markets form. When asked to look ahead, 64% of Canadian CEOs say they expect their company will grow in at least one sector outside of their own in the next three years.

Canadian CEOs are looking to expand into sectors outside their own in the next three years

Question: In which of the following industries (if any), outside of your own, will you look to grow your business (including partnering with others to do so) over the next three years?

Industrials and services	31%
Energy, utilities, and resources	23%
Consumer markets	21%
Health industries	20%
Technology, media, and telecommunications	16%
Financial services	11%
Private equity, real assets, and sovereign funds	5%
None of the above	36%

Canadian CEOs not yet seriously considering new markets or reinvention activities should be—if only to keep up with competitors that are. How can Canadian CEOs make sure they’re capturing their share of emerging opportunities?

Unearth opportunities aligned to public policy

Interactions between the private sector and government are changing. To solve many of today’s complex problems and deliver what citizens need will require the private sector and business community to come together in new ways.

Governments around the world are no longer just a source of regulation—they’re an increasingly important source of capital. With its recent budget, the Government of Canada has communicated unequivocally to businesses and citizens its intent to derisk and unlock investment in Canada. At the same time, it has shown it’s looking for industry to bring innovation and investment to help deliver in critical domains of growth. This includes those identified in organizations and initiatives such as the Defence Investment Agency, Build Canada Homes, and the Major Projects Office.

Canadian companies should be digging deep into opportunities in, for example, the future of defence, technology and data centres, the future of manufacturing, energy resilience and decarbonization, and the future of health. If opportunities aren’t readily apparent, leaders should look again.

Collaborate with ecosystem partners to achieve speed and scale

Moving at speed and scale to take advantage of emerging cross-sector opportunities, including those identified by the federal government, will require Canadian companies to collaborate with ecosystem partners. This may even include competitors and disruptors. The first step for CEOs is to consider how to remove barriers to collaboration, both internally within the organization and externally in the market.

Internally, collaboration at scale could require investment in core systems to enable interoperation with partners across the value chain. There’s also an opportunity to leverage agentic AI to reinvent internal business processes and enable collaboration. Agentic AI systems, where agents interact and automate processes, could have significant effects on current workforce tasks and fundamentally change business operations.

Externally, organizations will need to partner or transact if they want to reconfigure systems to enable all organizations to succeed. Of special interest should be adding value with complementary capabilities, as opposed to strengthening market power or acquiring customers. As an example, no single Canadian tech company will be able to solve data sovereignty alone. However, a coalition approach that brings together companies and government resources could address this challenge and support national security and economic interests.

Navigate what’s to come in 2026 and beyond

What did we hear from Canadian CEOs this year? Last year was challenging, and many CEOs continue to be concerned about the implications of ongoing geopolitical and trade uncertainty. This will only be heightened in the context of recent US military actions. While many Canadian CEOs expressed optimism about their own organization’s future growth prospects, questions linger about national economic growth.

As we move further into 2026, every Canadian CEO should be asking where the new opportunities are for their organization. Critical areas of largely untapped opportunity include embracing a reinvention mindset, fully committing to AI implementation, and collaborating with ecosystem partners to take advantage of national policy developments.

The imposition of US tariffs in the last year was a wake-up call for many Canadian CEOs. While some gains have been made in terms of AI adoption and exploration into new sectors, there are significant opportunities for CEOs to build on this momentum.

Canadian CEOs must act decisively to maintain momentum

Key findings

Pulse check: How are Canadian CEOs feeling about future growth?

Canadian CEOs continue to recalibrate amid trade uncertainty

Actions for Canadian CEOs

Canadian CEOs still skeptical of committing fully to AI implementation

Actions for Canadian CEOs

Canadian CEOs making strides in exploring new sectors

Actions for Canadian CEOs

Canadian CEOs are looking to expand into sectors outside their own in the next three years

Unearth opportunities aligned to public policy

Collaborate with ecosystem partners to achieve speed and scale

Navigate what’s to come in 2026 and beyond

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