ALIGNED IN MOTION • RESEARCH
CxO AI Practice Study 2026
How senior leaders are learning, practising and creating value with AI.
Generative AI is entering organisations rapidly. But access to AI is not the same as learning how to work with it.
The CxO AI Practice Study 2026 explores how senior leaders personally use AI, how leadership teams are adapting, and how organisations create the conditions for learning, safe experimentation and value creation.
7–10 minutesParticipation can be anonymous
Study open — currently collecting responses
Already took part in a CxO conversation? Share your feedback
From AI awareness to AI practice
Most organisations are investing in AI. But a different question deserves attention: how are leaders themselves learning to work with it?
The study looks beyond tools and adoption rates to understand how AI is changing executive work, leadership practice and organisational learning.
The research progression
- Awareness
- Learning
- Practice
- Safe experimentation
- Evidence
- Scale
Three levels explored
01
You
The individual CxO or senior leader.
02
Leadership team
The Executive Committee and senior leadership team.
03
Organisation
Teams and the broader organisation.
What are we trying to understand?
- 01
How are CxOs actually using AI today?
- 02
Has AI changed how leaders lead — or mainly how they produce work?
- 03
Is AI changing senior leadership teams as much as it is changing the teams below them?
- 04
How are leaders learning and developing their AI practice?
- 05
Do organisations provide safe places to experiment with AI?
- 06
How do promising AI ideas move from experiment to evidence and scale?
Where are leaders today — and where do they want to be?
The study compares what executives do with AI today with what they would like to be able to do — within three, six and twelve months.
The purpose is to understand not only AI adoption, but the gap between current practice and future ambition.
Capabilities explored
- Search and research
- Synthesis
- Content creation
- Analysis
- Meeting preparation
- Idea generation
- Challenging assumptions
- Scenario exploration
- Decision support
- Strategic thinking
- Learning
- Leadership practice
- Automation
- AI-enabled workflows and agents
How are leaders learning?
AI capabilities are changing quickly. The study explores how senior leaders are developing their own practice:
It also asks a simple but important question: how much time do senior leaders actually dedicate to learning and practising with AI?
- Personal experimentation
- Formal training
- Executive education
- Colleagues and peers
- Learning from their teams
- External experts or mentors
- Books, podcasts and online content
Where is it safe to experiment?
New practices rarely emerge from theory alone. People need somewhere to try, fail, learn and improve.
The study explores whether leaders and employees have safe environments in which to experiment with AI before every idea has to prove its business value.
Factors explored
- Approved tools
- Clear data and confidentiality rules
- Sandbox environments
- Governance
- Management permission
- Allocated experimentation time
- Permission to fail and learn
- Expert support
- Peer communities
- AI Champions
A safe place to experiment is both a governance question and a leadership question.
Is AI making leaders faster — or sharper?
Much of the discussion around AI focuses on productivity. This study will also explore whether AI helps leaders:
- Uncover blind spots
- Challenge assumptions
- Consider new options
- Improve judgement
- Make better decisions
Participate
Take part in the study
Nine short sections, one at a time. Around 7–10 minutes. No identity or email is required to participate — your answers save locally in this browser as you go.
Required questions are marked with an asterisk. Everything else is optional.
Privacy
Participation is voluntary. You may complete the study anonymously.
Responses will be used to analyse patterns in senior leaders' AI practices.
No identifying information or attributed quotation will be published beyond the permission you explicitly select.
HOW WE WORK
The study is an experiment too.
We are asking senior leaders how they learn, practise and experiment with AI.
We believe the research process should follow the same principles.
After each CxO conversation, we ask participants what was useful, what was not, and what we should improve.
We reflect on that feedback, change the next version of the experience, and continue learning.
The methodology evolves as we learn — while the core research questions remain consistent enough to compare patterns across participants.
- Conversation
- Feedback
- Learning
- Change
- Next experiment
LEARNING IN PUBLIC
You said. We changed.
The CxO AI Practice Study is evolving through conversations with senior leaders.
After each round of conversations, we review what participants experienced, what we observed, and what should change.
This is not a presentation of research findings. It is a record of how the research process itself is improving.
The first round of conversations is under way. Entries will appear here as the methodology changes.
Already took part in a CxO conversation?
Share your feedbackResults
Study in progress.
No findings, participant numbers or conclusions are published yet.
Results will be published on this page once sufficient evidence has been collected. Participant feedback and our own observations are kept separate from research findings.