The days of CEOs treating artificial intelligence like a magic wand that fixes everything are hitting a wall. A fresh report from the IBM Institute for Business Value shows big-time executives are significantly dialing back their enthusiasm for the technology as a quick fix for business growth. Just a year ago, nearly half of those in the C-suite were convinced that generative AI would be the engine driving their expansion. Now, that number has crashed to a mere 10% when discussing agentic AI, which represents tools capable of taking autonomous actions on behalf of a user.

This isn't because they’ve given up on the tech, though. Quite the opposite—74% of the 2,000 CEOs surveyed across 33 countries and 21 industries expect agentic AI to start delivering serious growth by 2030. They're simply moving from the phase of 'hyped-up marketing' to 'real-world implementation.' The challenge is that only 24% of these leaders actually have a clear map for how this value will be created. They know the tech is powerful, but they're lowkey struggling to figure out how to bake it into their daily operations without just throwing money at it.

"CEOs who have defined a tailored AI vision are more optimistic about product and service innovation."

The real issue with the current approach is an obsession with large, generic pre-trained models. These are the massive, 'one-size-fits-all' brains that everyone is currently trying to plug into their systems. The IBM study suggests this is a mistake. Executives who pivot toward smaller, custom-built models or a hybrid of foundation and bespoke tools are seeing significantly better returns. Those playing the custom game expect to see 24% higher productivity gains and a 55% jump in operating profit margins by 2030 compared to their peers who stick to the standard stuff.

This is a lesson for local businesses, including those in the Nigerian tech ecosystem. Companies often try to import foreign solutions that don't match our unique infrastructure or local market behaviors. By building AI models on localized data, businesses can solve problems that global giants haven't even thought about. The math is simple: using custom tools can effectively double the speed of process cycles by 2030. That means you spend less time waiting for systems to catch up and more time actually innovating.

The biggest hurdle isn't the code; it’s the people. Currently, many companies are just stapling AI onto old, inefficient workflows. The most successful firms are doing something else entirely: they're rethinking how humans and machines talk to each other. The report notes that today AI acts as a supplement to staff, but in just four years, that dynamic will flip. By 2030, humans will likely be the ones augmenting the AI, stepping in to solve the complex, high-level pattern recognition that machines still can't grasp.

Leaders who encourage cross-functional collaboration—getting the finance, marketing, and engineering teams to talk to each other about AI strategy—are twice as likely to actually hit their business goals. AI shouldn't just be an IT project sitting in a basement. It requires a total cultural shift where employees are trained to ask the questions the machine doesn't even know exist. The human advantage now lies in strategic context, not just raw processing power.

  • Survey data collected between February and April 2026.
  • Total sample size of 2,000 global CEOs.
  • 55% improvement in operating profit margins projected for custom-model users.
  • 24% boost in productivity for those tailoring their AI strategy.
  • 10% of CEOs now expect rapid growth from AI within two years, down from 49%.

The boardrooms that succeed won't be the ones that had the most expensive consultants or the flashiest tools. They'll be the ones that actually got their hands dirty, customizing their data to build unique products that don't even exist yet. It's not about replacing the office; it's about building a team where the machines do the heavy lifting so the people can do the thinking.