Insights from KPMG’s 2025 Global CEO Outlook, focusing on banking, capital markets and insurance, reveal a strong appetite for technology-led reinvention despite geopolitical uncertainty and economic volatility.
Trend indicators show consistently high confidence scores, highlighting AI integration and cyber resilience as top priorities. Executives are increasingly viewing digital innovation not only as a defensive necessity, but as a catalyst for growth, operational efficiency and customer trust in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Insurance chief executive officers are increasingly confident in their organisations’ growth prospects. Globally, 82% of insurance chief executive officers are confident in their company’s growth, up from 74% in 2024, a significant year-on-year increase. Expansion across health, life, and specialty lines, including cyber and business interruption, is contributing to improved earnings and sector momentum.
AI adoption is accelerating across underwriting, onboarding, claims processing and cyber defence. Globally, 67% of chief executive officers expect returns from AI investments within one to three years, compared to 21% last year, and two thirds plan to allocate 10–20% of their budgets towards AI initiatives.
Workforce transformation is a parallel priority. Seventy-seven percent of global insurance chief executive officers cite AI workforce readiness and upskilling as a top constraint on growth, while 83% say AI is reshaping training and development, and 79% believe it is changing the skills required for entry-level roles.
Sustainability and ESG compliance remain high on the agenda, particularly as regulatory standards tighten globally. More than half (55%) of global insurance chief executive officers identify ESG reporting and compliance as their primary ESG priority. Given that many African regulatory frameworks follow European trends, this is a critical area of focus for insurers across the continent.
Cyber risk remains a dominant concern. Eighty-three percent of insurance chief executive officers identify cybercrime as the biggest barrier to organisational growth, with cybersecurity and digital-risk resilience ranking as the leading area for risk mitigation investment.
Mark Danckwerts, Head: Insurance, KPMG One Africa said: “Insurance leaders across Africa are navigating a complex operating environment, but they are doing so from a position of growing confidence.
"AI presents enormous opportunity to improve efficiency, risk assessment and customer engagement. However, sustainable success will depend on responsible adoption, workforce readiness, and strong cyber resilience. Insurers that balance innovation with trust will be best placed to outperform.”
The appetite for inorganic growth remains strong, with the insurance sector showing one of the highest levels of high-impact mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity globally, a trend reflected in several African markets in recent years.
For banks across Africa, AI is the predominant theme shaping chief executive officer priorities.
“Technology, in particular AI, presents a huge opportunity, but also a challenge in terms of where to prioritise, how to achieve a measurable return on investment (ROI), and how to ensure responsible and safe adoption to maintain trust,” said Pierre Fourie, KPMG One Africa Head: Financial Services.
“Banks need to modernise legacy IT, cope with rising financial crime risk, made more difficult by sophisticated scams using AI, address new competitive threats from fintechs and nimble, cloud-native banks, and comply with complex and changing regulations.”
AI is seen as both an enabler and a risk amplifier. It can significantly enhance customer engagement and deepen understanding of customer needs, yet banks must guard against depersonalising interactions and losing the human touch. At the same time, AI raises the cyber-threat landscape while also strengthening banks’ ability to detect and defend against bad actors.
The scale of planned investment is notable:
The top five trends negatively impacting organisational prosperity in banking are:
Fourie added: “For African banks, AI is not a theoretical discussion — it is a strategic imperative. The ability to integrate AI into core processes, manage cyber risk and build the right talent base will determine competitive advantage.
"At the same time, banks must modernise legacy systems and manage infrastructure costs, all while protecting trust in an increasingly digital ecosystem.”
Inorganic growth also remains firmly on the agenda. Appetite for strategic transactions is high, with chief executive officers seeking differentiation through innovation, customer experience and new business models.
Notably, 25% of banking chief executive officers identify ‘strategic differentiation’ as the primary driver of AI adoption, signalling that technology investment is increasingly linked to long-term competitive positioning rather than short-term efficiency alone.
Across both insurance and banking, a common theme emerges: confidence underpinned by disciplined transformation. AI investment is accelerating, cybersecurity is paramount, ESG compliance is rising in importance, and M&A remains a lever for scale and capability.
For African financial institutions, the challenge, and opportunity, lies in balancing innovation with resilience, and growth with governance.
