Orgvue study finds AI divide between executives & managers

Orgvue has published research showing deep divisions within leadership teams over AI deployment and workforce change. The survey found gaps between executives and senior managers on the pace, priorities and likely consequences of AI adoption.

Based on a web survey of 1,166 senior decision-makers across English-speaking markets in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, the research points to what Orgvue calls an "Intentionality Gap" in corporate decision-making. It argues that many organisations are launching AI programmes without agreement on objectives, timelines or the structures needed to carry them through.

One of the clearest findings concerns expectations for near-term change. Some 74% of executives said AI was highly likely to transform their organisation in the next 12 months, compared with 47% of senior managers.

A similar split appears in corporate priorities. More than half of executives, 56%, said AI deployment ranked among their top three priorities, versus 42% of senior managers.

Instinct versus data

The study also suggests many senior leaders are making major decisions without consistently relying on evidence. Nearly nine in 10, or 89%, said they use instinct in key decisions, while only a third said they consistently use data to guide them.

The same pattern appears in views on whether leaders are equipped to handle AI-related choices. Just 46% of executives and 38% of senior managers said they had the technological literacy needed to make more deliberate decisions in their organisations.

The findings also show differing views on the skills that matter most. Executive leaders placed greater emphasis on advanced AI prompting skills, cited by 54%, while senior managers were more likely to prioritise analytical thinking and the project management tools needed to put plans into effect.

Leadership teams are also divided over how change should be managed. Responses split evenly between leaders who encourage teams to act first and those who insist on oversight and checks, a divide the research says can create confusion and slow implementation.

Redundancy plans

The sharpest disconnect in the report concerns headcount reduction. While 63% of executives said they expected redundancies within six months, fewer than half of senior managers, 44%, said they were aware of such plans.

This gap risks compounding uncertainty as companies weigh automation, workforce redesign and AI spending. It also suggests that decisions taken at the top are not always being communicated clearly through management layers.

A third of executive and C-suite respondents believe employees are mainly there to execute leadership direction rather than help shape the vision. That finding points to a more top-down approach to AI implementation in some larger organisations.

The respondent pool covered organisations with more than 2,000 employees in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada, and businesses with more than 500 employees in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. It included executive leads, C-suite teams and senior management.

Mike Bobek, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Orgvue, said: "The decisions organisations make about AI in the next twelve to eighteen months will have consequences that last a decade, which makes this research both important and sobering. The gap between executive ambition and organisational readiness is real, it's measurable, and it's costing organisations the very advantage they're trying to capture."

He added that the divide between leadership layers is not confined to strategy. "The difference between what executives plan and what senior managers see first-hand is striking. Organisations are making redundancies, accelerating AI deployment timelines and setting priorities that simply aren't landing two levels down. That's not an AI problem; it's a fundamental breakdown in organisational intentionality. And this is the single biggest predictor of transformations that ultimately stall and fail."

Orgvue argues that AI projects are faltering less because of the underlying tools and more because of weak organisational alignment. In practice, the data suggests executive enthusiasm is often running ahead of the operational readiness of the managers expected to put plans into action.

That matters because large-scale AI adoption often requires changes to reporting lines, workflows, skills planning and job design, not just software procurement. If senior managers do not share executives' assumptions on timing or impact, organisations may struggle to carry out workforce changes coherently.

Bobek said organisations need a more continuous approach to planning and clearer communication with staff. "Even so, this gap is closeable but it requires continuous, rather than annual, planning. Leaders need to make workforce decisions on evidence instead of assumptions and be fully transparent with the workforce about what's changing and why. That's not easy but the organisations willing to do that work are the ones who will look back on this period as the moment they pulled ahead."