Signal Only 24% of leaders call ethical and compliance guidelines important to enterprise AI adoption

Summary

This signal highlights a mismatch in how leaders weigh ethics in AI adoption. In McKinsey's 2026 survey, fewer than one in four leaders, or 24 percent, said clear ethical and compliance guidance is important for rolling out new technologies across the enterprise. That is striking because regulatory, ethical, or legal concerns were ranked as the second-largest barrier to adoption. McKinsey uses the figure to support its view that many leaders fail to recognize how much such concerns matter to employees. The implication is that trust-building measures may be underinvested even though distrust is slowing uptake.