How CEOs feel about this economy

As a part of Marketplace’s Economic Pulse series, we occasionally like to check in on the economy from a range of perspectives. This time, we’re hearing from CEOs. The audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG is out with a new survey that can tell us a little bit about how CEOs at 100 big companies are feeling and planning in this economy.

“Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with KPMG’s U.S. CEO, Tim Walsh, to unpack the findings of the survey. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: So, you've surveyed 100 CEOs at large companies. What is at the top of their minds right now?

Tim Walsh: There are a number of things. I would say the No. 1 topic that CEOs are thinking about is the acceleration of AI in their businesses. And this concept that it's not really a discretionary, optional spend anymore, that it's an absolute must-have. And it's about adopting, and if you're not doing it, then you're being left behind your competitors.

Ben-Achour: With AI, the major concern is is it going to take over people's jobs? Is that what CEOs are thinking when they think about AI right now?

Walsh: I don't think CEOs are automatically going to, “how many jobs I'm going to displace?” But since we've not seen this happen before, it is an unknown. And as the technology continues to change and accelerate, one thing is for sure, that AI will impact every single layer in the stack of employees at certainly almost every business I can think of.

Ben-Achour: So, your survey closed just before the Supreme Court struck down many of President Trump's tariffs. But before that, a majority of the CEOs you surveyed said that policy uncertainty around tariffs and interest rates was already the top pressure driving their short-term decisions. Is it holding them back?

Walsh: The way I would answer that, Sabri, is it has held them back, but they are moving forward now. Over the last year or so, you saw sort of a pause in investments as CEOs tried to determine what they could do with their supply chains, what they could move, how could they take costs out of their supply chains, and lastly, what kind of pricing changes they might need to put into their systems. That's changed now. That's part of what I think you're seeing with you know, companies and CEOs are, they're becoming resilient to disruption, and they're managing through it. And so, you start seeing capital flows happening again.

Ben-Achour: Consumers have been kind of depressed about the labor market, about exactly how the U.S. economy is doing. What do CEOs think?

Walsh: The U.S. economy has been resilient — that's what CEOs think, in every conversation that I'm having. That being said, CEOs like certainty, to some extent. CEOs like consistency, because you can manage through that. And so the mood is cautious. The mood is one that is watching closely. You know, they're watching unemployment or watching inflation to see if any indicators would change strategy.