Business leaders still expect to make bank this year, but not as much as in 2025, citing rising business costs as their biggest challenge.

Revenue growth expectations slip from 39% to 34.2%. Whilst 78% of respondents expect to be profitable in 2026, 56% of them expect lower profits than in 2025. 37.4% are confident their profits will be more than last year. Nearly the same number said it was lack of know-how on strategising and developing action plans to transform (42.1%). Meanwhile, nearly half of businesses (45%) indicated they are experimenting with off-the-shelf AI tools as a first step towards broader AI integration into their businesses.