Leading with confidence. Reinventing tomorrow.

Turning confidence into reinvention

The Philippines enters 2026 at a critical inflection point. As the country assumes the ASEAN Chairmanship, businesses are navigating geopolitical tensions, economic volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and the transformative impact of AI while seeking new sources of growth.

The outlook among Philippine CEOs remains positive. Most remain confident about growth, with confidence strengthening as CEOs look further ahead. Yet confidence does not equate to complacency. The survey reveals a growing recognition that the business models and competitive advantages that delivered success in the past may not be enough to sustain relevance in the future.

This year's findings highlight a defining paradox: CEOs remain confident in their ability to grow, yet fewer than half believe their businesses would remain economically viable beyond a decade if they continue on their current path. Growth remains attainable but increasingly depends on an organization's ability to adapt, innovate, and reinvent itself.  

In response, AI, innovation, talent, partnerships, and new markets are moving higher on the strategic agenda. The findings point to a new leadership mandate: balancing today's performance with the capabilities needed to compete tomorrow. In an era of constant change, the ability to turn uncertainty into opportunity, and confidence into action, may become the most important competitive advantage of all.

Philippine CEOs remain confident about growth despite a more volatile operating environment.

What will drive Philippine economic growth in the next 12 months?

Confidence is underpinned by the domestic economy. CEOs identify domestic consumption as the country's leading growth driver, followed by infrastructure development and government spending. OFW remittances, BPO and services, and AI and digital transformation also contribute to the growth outlook.  

Which government actions would most improve business confidence over the next three years?

CEOs are signaling that confidence depends not only on economic growth, but also on the quality of the business environment. Ease of doing business and regulatory reform rank ahead of infrastructure delivery and energy security among actions that could strengthen confidence.  

The geopolitical map is changing

Among specific geopolitical developments, Middle East instability emerges as the greatest perceived risk, followed by US–China tensions. Global supply-chain fragmentation, West Philippine Sea tensions, and trade restrictions and tariffs are also prominent concerns.

ASEAN opportunity amid fragmentation

Geopolitical fragmentation also creates an opportunity closer to home.

As the Philippines assumes the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2026, deeper regional integration could give businesses greater access to neighboring markets, facilitate supply chain diversification, and create new avenues for investment and collaboration.

Easier access to ASEAN markets ranks as the leading opportunity identified by CEOs. Lower trade barriers, digital infrastructure and the data economy, greater foreign investment within ASEAN, and regional supply-chain integration follow.  

Build resilience without retreating from growth

Uncertainty can encourage caution. But resilience is not simply about protecting the existing business. CEOs can use scenario planning, partnerships, and regional diversification to position their organizations for different outcomes while continuing to pursue opportunities for growth.

The AI readiness gap

Philippine CEOs report strong cultural and technology foundations for AI, but readiness becomes less consistent when the questions turn to roadmaps, governance, investment, and talent.

To realize AI's full potential, organizations must move from AI intention to enterprise capability—and ultimately to sustainable and measurable business value.

The objective is not simply more AI. It is more value from AI.

What is rising to the top of the CEO agenda? Their responses highlight where business leaders see the greatest opportunities.

Their leading investment priority is workforce upskilling, reskilling, and talent transformation, closely followed by process automation and productivity transformation. Strategic partnerships, AI and digital transformation, new markets, and new products and business models also rank prominently.  

Building competitive advantage

CEOs' investment priorities reveal a shift from pursuing growth alone to building the capabilities that make growth sustainable. Talent transformation tops the list, while investments in productivity, technology, strategic partnerships, and innovation reflect a broader effort to build more adaptable, resilient, and future-ready organizations.

But execution is the test

The two largest barriers to strategy execution identified by CEOs are talent retention and skills shortages (21%) and resource constraints (20%). CEOs also struggle to balance short-term pressures with long-term goals.

Businesses want to invest in transformation—but the talent and resources needed to execute it are themselves in short supply.

The practices needed to turn innovation into repeatable capability are less widespread. While 92% view innovation as a critical part of business strategy, fewer organizations report having the structures and disciplines that support systematic innovation.

The results suggest a distinction between valuing innovation and institutionalizing it. This echoes one of the strongest themes in PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey: CEOs recognize innovation as strategically important, but specific practices that support systematic innovation are much less widely embedded.  

Innovation requires more than ideas. Companies need mechanisms to experiment, collaborate, listen to customers, allocate resources to promising opportunities—and stop initiatives that are not delivering.

The organizations that build these disciplines can make innovation part of how the business operates, rather than an activity that sits alongside it.  

Philippine CEOs enter 2026 with confidence in their companies, their industries, and the country's growth potential.

But beneath that optimism is a clear recognition that the environment is changing.

Only 46% believe their businesses can remain economically viable beyond ten years on their current path. CEOs are navigating geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty. AI adoption is accelerating, but important readiness gaps remain. Innovation is widely viewed as essential, but the disciplines needed to scale it are less widely embedded. And talent—the leading area for investment—is also the biggest barrier to execution.

The message from the survey is therefore not one of pessimism. It is one of urgency.

The businesses best positioned for the next decade may not simply be those that predict uncertainty correctly. They will be those that build the capacity to respond to it—investing in people, deploying technology with purpose, strengthening innovation capabilities, forming new partnerships, and continually reassessing where and how they create value.

The question for Philippine CEOs is no longer whether change is coming. It is whether they can turn confidence into action fast enough.