Strategic Planning in the Era of Digital Transformation and AI: Ukraine in Comparison With the Global Business Environment (2018–2025)

The purpose of the paper is to examine how the strategic priorities of corporate leaders in Ukraine and globally evolved during 2018–2025, influenced by digital transformation and artificial intelligence. Methodology. The study applies a secondary comparative longitudinal analysis based on recent academic literature and KPMG leadership materials published between 2018 and 2025. Because the survey waves differ across years and are not fully identical in design, the comparison is conducted through harmonized strategic themes rather than strictly matched indicators. Results. The findings indicate a broad shift from digitally informed strategic planning in 2018–2019, through crisis- and resilience-driven digital adaptation in 2020–2023, to AI-centered strategic planning in 2024–2025. In both Ukraine and the global business environment, technology, talent, resilience, and governance increasingly moved from operational concerns to strategic priorities. However, global leaders frame AI more strongly in terms of governance, data readiness, and expected returns, whereas Ukrainian leaders emphasize resilience, security, implementation feasibility, cost, and skills. Practical implications. The study shows that effective strategic planning in the digital era requires not only technology adoption but also talent development, governance capacity, risk management, and contextual adaptation. For Ukraine, this implies that digital transformation and AI should be integrated into the strategy as instruments of both modernization and resilience. Value/originality. The paper contributes a comparative longitudinal synthesis of executive strategic priorities and argues that Ukraine should be interpreted not as a delayed version of the global trajectory, but as a distinct strategic context in which digital transformation and AI are shaped by instability, recovery needs, and wartime resilience.