Reinventing transformation – UKTN

For business leaders looking ahead to 2026, stability is no longer the expectation. If anything, the opposite is true.

HLB International’s latest global survey suggests that uncertainty has become a permanent feature of decision-making, forcing executives to prioritise issues they might once have treated as longer-term problems. Cybersecurity and digital capability now sit firmly in that category, not as future risks, but as present constraints on growth.

Cybersecurity has climbed to the top of the risk list, with almost three-quarters (74%) of business leaders saying they are concerned or very concerned about it.

Over the past five years, concern has risen by 24 percentage points, enough to push cybersecurity ahead of worries that once dominated boardroom conversations – including inflation, regulation, and political risk. That shift says less about a single threat than about how exposed modern organisations have become as more of their core operations move online.

According to HLB’s chief marketing officer and the survey lead Lesley Hornung, leaders are no longer treating security and innovation as competing priorities. “Through our study, we find that business leaders reconcile cybersecurity concerns with rapid tech adoption by treating security and digital transformation as a single, integrated agenda,” she says.

What makes the finding more uncomfortable is that cyber risk is not only seen as a threat, but also as a weakness. Leaders rank cybersecurity as the second-most urgent internal issue to fix in 2026, suggesting that awareness has outpaced capability.

Many organisations know they are exposed, but admit they are struggling to close the gap between recognising the risk and reducing it. That disconnect is becoming harder to defend as incidents become more disruptive and more public.

“We also see business leaders recognise that internal weaknesses in digital and AI capabilities and cybersecurity are high priorities to address,” Hornung explains.

“Cybersecurity is the second most cited weakness leaders are focusing on in the next 12 months (29% overall). When looking at sector-specific data segments, we see this even more sharply in highly digital industries: 36% in financial services, 28% in manufacturing, and 34% of respondents in retail flag cybersecurity as a key weakness alongside digital and AI capability gaps.”

“Business leaders recognise that internal weaknesses in digital and AI capabilities and cybersecurity are high priorities to address”

Technology is increasingly being pulled into that conversation. Leaders are not stepping back from adoption, but they are becoming more selective about what they expect it to deliver. While improving operational efficiency remains the most common growth action, technology adoption follows closely behind.

“At the same time,” Hornung adds, “while 55% of leaders say they plan to implement new tech in 2026, we also see that there is a real need for support. Again, from AI-powered decision-making (41%) and cybersecurity (39%) to broader digital transformation (36%) and business intelligence tools (29%). These are all highly ranked for requiring external expertise and support.”

Tackling challenges

The biggest pinch point shows up around digital and AI capability. Over a third (35%) of leaders now describe it as their main weakness to tackle in 2026 which is more than any other area. The year-on-year rise is hard to ignore; many organisations have reached the point where AI is no longer something being tested on the side.

As those projects move into everyday use, the practical difficulties become clearer, from how systems connect to who is responsible for decisions when something goes wrong.

“Digital and AI capability gaps in the research are around maturity and using tools safely, intelligently and in a customer-relevant way. The first critical gap is around secure, trustworthy data foundations. One of the subject matter experts we interviewed warned that longstanding issues with data quality are being amplified by AI,” says Hornung.

The gap many leaders describe is not about technology itself, but about putting it to work. Once AI projects move beyond small trials, practical issues begin to pile up, from skills and data to questions about ownership. Making sure teams understand how these systems are intended to support decision-making and who is accountable when they fail has proved more difficult than expected.

“This links to another gap we talk about in the report, which is around planning and processes,” Hornung adds. “When AI is applied to a process that was poorly designed to begin with, automating it might make it worse, so leaders need to assess their processes first.”

Automated and AI-powered decision-making sits at the centre of these challenges. While investment levels are rising, the organisations seeing the most benefit tend to be those that are already more digitally mature.

“We can look at organisations that deploy AI for forecasting and planning, which makes up 22% of all the business leaders in our study,” Hornung says. “These organisations are typically, more AI-mature and have adopted tech to automate and enhance various parts of their operations. They are more likely to embed a ‘dual speed’ planning culture, using both adaptive planning and comprehensive long-term planning techniques in parallel.”

The survey does not suggest organisations are standing still. Most are trying to move, often at pace, but it also shows how difficult that has become. Issues that once sat in the background now shape everyday decisions.

Cybersecurity is no longer a specialist concern, and AI projects are placing extra demands on systems and people that were already stretched. In that environment, adding new technology rarely happens in isolation and often reveals hidden weaknesses.