EY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Barometer

Today’s entrepreneurs are recalibrating. Growth is still the goal, but it’s being pursued with new discipline and a reshaped workforce.

In brief

  • Entrepreneurs are pursuing growth under pressure, balancing rising costs, pricing limits and talent gaps with sharper, more selective investment decisions.

  • Partnerships are now essential to scale, with founders leveraging external ecosystems to access technology, talent and markets faster.

  • AI is reshaping work — not reducing it — as companies redesign roles, invest in skills and build teams that combine human judgment with technology.

Entrepreneurs haven’t become less ambitious. They’ve become more disciplined. 

Nearly half of the 500 founders and CEOs surveyed in the latest EY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Barometer would prioritize growth over profitability or financial resilience if forced to choose. That’s a notable finding at a time when resilience, efficiency and cost management dominate many boardroom conversations. 

But this isn’t a return to the era of “growth at all costs.” Today’s founders are making more deliberate choices about where they invest, whom they partner with, and how they deploy technology and talent. Growth remains the objective. Precision has become the strategy.


How EY can help

In this era of economic uncertainty, the path to growth remains complex. Geopolitical disruption, rising customer acquisition costs and ongoing talent constraints are reshaping operating conditions. At the same time, pricing remains a balancing act, as many expect to raise prices even in the face of resistance from customers who are equally under pressure.

 

Entrepreneurs are navigating an environment defined not by a single challenge, but by overlapping and compounding forces — a growth squeeze from all sides. For example, 72% of entrepreneurs report their businesses are moderately (60%) or highly (12%) exposed to geopolitical disruption, with 10% citing geopolitical uncertainty as their top constraint to growth. In fact, 55% expect to shift suppliers this year in response to geopolitical or supply chain disruptions.

 

However, geopolitics isn’t the only concern for businesses today. Leaders are also juggling rising customer acquisition costs (41%), pricing pressure (37%) and talent constraints (37%) as their biggest obstacles to growth.

Companies' top constraints to growth


If there is one defining characteristic of today’s entrepreneurs, it is discipline. Leaders are becoming increasingly deliberate about how they pursue growth. Rather than spreading resources broadly, entrepreneurs are making hard choices about where to invest, where to cut back and which opportunities are most likely to generate returns. 

Nearly every company surveyed have made reductions in at least one area, from marketing budgets to technology investments. Yet this is not a story of retrenchment but rather one of reallocation. While just over one-quarter of those surveyed have reduced headcount, an impressive 89% expect to grow their workforce over the next year, underscoring entrepreneurs’ continued role as engines of economic growth and job creation. 

The result is a new model for growth, one that prioritizes precision over expansion for expansion’s sake. Across capital, talent, technology and partnerships, entrepreneurs are making more intentional choices about where to invest and where to focus. The decisions entrepreneurs make today may increasingly separate growth leaders from those striving to keep up.

Companies have cut or reduced the following to protect profitability


To thrive amid disruption, entrepreneurs are leveraging the following tactics to maintain growth and profitability: 

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Calculated moves

Strategic partnerships are becoming a core growth strategy as founders pursue access to customers, technology, talent and new markets.

How EY can help

Growth today is not driven by a single strategy. It is increasingly powered by an ecosystem of relationships, capabilities and partnerships that help entrepreneurs move faster than they could alone.

 

As entrepreneurs navigate geopolitical disruption, pricing pressure and talent shortages, many are becoming more selective about where they invest and what they choose to build internally. Rather than developing every capability themselves, founders are increasingly turning to partners to access customers, technology, talent and new markets.

 

Nearly all entrepreneurs surveyed (97%) pursued strategic partnerships as part of their growth strategy in either 2025 or 2026. That compares with just 11% of large enterprise CEOs in the Americas who reported doing the same in the May 2026 CEO Outlook.

 

The gap suggests entrepreneurs may be adopting a fundamentally different growth model — one that relies less on ownership and more on ecosystem leverage. In many cases, strategic partnerships are no longer simply accelerating growth; they are becoming a core strategy for achieving it.

 

Strategic partnerships can have many benefits. For the entrepreneurs surveyed, improved access to technology, customers and supply chains topped the list, with inroads to talent, new markets and expertise following closely behind. However, there are risks to keep in mind when working with partners, with data protection and visibility gaps a leading concern for nearly half of respondents. Surprisingly, only 3% report no major risks in their current partner ecosystem.


Supply chain concerns also factored into how entrepreneurs are reacting to pricing pressures. More than one-third cited the inability to raise prices among their top three constraints to growth. Despite this, just over half expect to raise prices and 42% expect to reduce margins in response to supply chain disruptions by the end of the year.

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Entrepreneurial edge

  • Focus on fewer, higher-impact growth bets. Prioritize the initiatives, partnerships and investments that will deliver the greatest return, and be willing to scale back elsewhere. Growth today is less about doing more, and more about doubling down on what works.

  • Build partnerships for capability, not just scale. Use partnerships to accelerate access to what you don’t have, whether that’s technology, talent or new markets. The most effective alliances are those that expand capability and share risk, not simply expand reach.

  • Plan for disruption as a constant. Embed geopolitical and supply chain risk into day‑to‑day decision-making. From supplier diversification to pricing strategy, resilience comes from anticipating disruption, not reacting to it.
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AI and value creation

While founders continue to invest in AI, they are increasingly focused on measurable outcomes that move the business forward.

Entrepreneurs are embracing AI, but with a growing focus on value creation rather than experimentation alone. Just over three-quarters of surveyed entrepreneurs have at least partially integrated AI, with 10% reporting full integration across their business processes.

Yet the findings suggest the conversation is evolving beyond adoption. Entrepreneurs increasingly expect AI investments to produce measurable business outcomes, particularly in revenue growth through sales and marketing, customer experience and operational efficiency.

That scrutiny is already influencing investment decisions. More than one-third of entrepreneurs report reducing spending on technology tools, including AI, during the past year. At the same time, many organizations still struggle to consistently determine AI’s impact. The result is a shift from experimentation to accountability, as leaders increasingly look for measurable returns on their AI investments.

For entrepreneurs, AI is becoming less about keeping up with innovation and more about investing where outcomes can be clearly demonstrated.


How EY can help

AI adoption is only part of the story. Alongside the opportunities come a growing focus on governance, risk and compliance, as evidenced by the fact that 99% of companies have established approaches to managing related security and data risks. Those methods include internal governance policies (56%) and talent dedicated to AI risk and compliance (44%). In terms of AI deployment, companies are focused on rolling out third-party tools with guardrails (54%) and restricting AI use cases (39%).

 

As AI investment continues despite tighter scrutiny on spending, many leaders are embedding safeguards into how it is designed and deployed across their organizations. By applying strong controls to high-risk applications and setting clear boundaries for critical use cases, they can move quickly without sacrificing oversight. Responsible AI is shifting from a compliance exercise to a business enabler, helping organizations build trust, protect data and scale with greater confidence.

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Entrepreneurial edge

  • Build connected AI workflows, not disconnected tools. Start with one high‑impact process and integrate AI across it end to end, so insights and outputs flow across decisions. The goal isn’t more tools in more functions — it’s fewer, more connected systems that compound value as you grow.

  • Set guardrails early, then move quickly within them. Define where and how AI can be used in your business, from data handling to customer interactions, and embed human checkpoints for high‑stakes decisions. Strong boundaries up front enable faster, more confident scaling.

  • Prioritize outcomes over experimentation. Focus AI efforts on clear business goals like revenue growth, cost reduction or customer experience, and test them within live workflows. Scale the solutions that deliver measurable impact, and move on from anything that doesn’t.
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Workforce redesign

Founders are using AI to rethink the future of work, one that is increasingly about humans plus AI as roles are transformed around technology and skills.

Much of the public conversation around AI has focused on workforce reduction, but the entrepreneurs surveyed appear to be taking a different approach.

Despite operating in a challenging business environment, 88% expect their workforce to grow over the next year. At the same time, nearly all respondents expect AI to reshape workforce strategy, with 42% redesigning roles to combine human and technological capabilities.

Expected headcount change over the next 12 months


Rather than viewing AI primarily as a tool for reducing headcount, entrepreneurs are increasingly using it to rethink how work gets done. As routine tasks become more automated, employees can focus more of their time on judgment, creativity, problem-solving and customer relationships.

The result is not necessarily fewer jobs, but different jobs. The future of work emerging from the entrepreneurial sector is less about human vs. AI and increasingly about human plus AI.

However, this transformation is happening under pressure. Talent remains a constraint, with 37% ranking it among their top barriers to growth. At the same time, resistance to AI adoption, both from gaps in expertise (16%) and workforce hesitation (13%), is slowing progress. Expectations are also rising: While only 13% of entrepreneurs cite workforce transformation as AI’s primary value, 43% place it among the top three outcomes, highlighting its growing strategic importance.

In response, entrepreneurs are taking a multi-pronged approach. Role redesign sits alongside increased hiring for AI and digital talent (35%) and large-scale reskilling and upskilling (38%), broadly aligning with how larger enterprises are evolving, according to the May 2026 CEO Outlook. The result is a workforce strategy focused less on filling jobs and more on reconfiguring work around technology, skills and growth priorities.

Top-ranked ways entrepreneurs expect AI to change their workforce strategy over the next three years


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Entrepreneurial edge

  • Redesign roles around human-AI collaboration. Shift work so people focus on interpreting outputs, making decisions and applying judgment to reallocate human effort where it matters most.

  • Invest in skills at speed. Address talent constraints by building a workforce that can evolve alongside AI. Prioritize targeted upskilling and reskilling in areas with critical gaps. Companies that move fastest here will be better positioned to translate AI investment into real performance gains.

  • Combine talent strategies to stay flexible. Blend hiring for critical digital roles with reskilling existing employees, and supplement with external talent where needed. This allows organizations to adapt quickly as technology, skills and demand continue to shift.

Summary

The EY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Barometer reveals a shift in how entrepreneurs are pursuing growth. While economic uncertainty, geopolitical disruption and talent challenges continue to create pressure, founders remain focused on expansion. What has changed is the approach. Entrepreneurs are becoming more deliberate about where they invest, increasingly leveraging partnerships, AI and workforce redesign to create value. Disciplined growth has become the advantage.

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