Julia Meir, Branch Director at Robert Half Geneva, examines why AI skills are becoming essential to executive leadership and what the C-Suite must do to keep up.
Executive leadership is entering a new era. In high-transaction environments such as the public sector or data-intensive industries, the pressure on leaders to act decisively, think strategically, and stay resilient has intensified. Traditional leadership approaches no longer provide the necessary edge. New insights from the Robert Half study Towards the C-Suite 2035 show that AI-enabled leadership will become one of the most decisive competitive factors over the next decade.
AI as a catalyst for a new leadership mindset
According to the study, 84 percent of executives see AI as the most critical skill for leadership by 2035. This is not just a call for tech-savviness. It reflects a broader redefinition of what executive readiness means. Vision and instinct remain important, but they are no longer enough on their own. The future C-Suite must combine strategic foresight with data literacy, digital fluency, and adaptive thinking.
More than half of leaders believe the future of executive decision-making will be both AI-supported and data-centric but still grounded in human values. Only a minority of nine percent expect AI to take over decision-making entirely. The prevailing view is one of collaboration. AI is seen as a strategic partner that sharpens insights, speeds up decisions, and creates space for executives to focus on the highest-value aspects of their roles including engaging stakeholders, managing through uncertainty, and developing future talent.
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The rise of the AI-Augmented Executive
Executive leadership is no longer defined by position, hierarchy, or years of tenure. Authority on its own is no longer enough. What distinguishes effective leaders today is their ability to integrate human intelligence with digital capability and to adapt at speed in a rapidly shifting technological landscape.
The AI-Augmented Executive is not just a future concept—it is already emerging in organisations where technology is viewed as a leadership enabler rather than a back-office tool. These leaders are distinguished not by their coding skills or technical background, but by their ability to ask better questions, interpret data in context, and apply insights to strategic decision-making.
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