6 January 2026

The C-Suite’s Expectations for 2026

Rebecca Patterson

Optimism, but with a healthy dose of caution. That was the tone expressed at the Council on Foreign Relations’ latest CEO Summit in New York City, which included more than two dozen executives across industries from the United States and Europe.

Overall, the group felt that 2025 had been “dynamic” but with the effects from tariffs less severe than initially feared and offset by a surprisingly large growth impulse from artificial intelligence (AI). The latter occurred mainly through capital spending on infrastructure like data centers and the wealth channel, as AI-focused technology companies helped lift equity markets more than had been expected at the start of the year.

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