Abstract
Generative AI (GenAI) technologies have captured the attention of business leaders in a powerful way due to their transformational potential. To understand leadership attention to GenAI technologies, we develop a framework based on the attention-based view of the firm. A survey with 419 IT decision-makers integrates aspects of situated attention (external environment, issue characteristics) and the structural distribution of attention (slack resources, organisational data readiness). The findings reveal that industry peer pressure is a key driver of both leadership attention and the anticipated benefits of GenAI. The study underlines the importance of understanding how attention is allocated to strategic priorities in information systems research. It further improves our knowledge of the emerging transition from hype to reality in the early stages of business use of AI technologies.
Recommended Citation
Panagiotopoulos, Panos; Afzal, Muhammad; and Forshaw, Matthew, "An attention-based view of generative AI technologies in business" (2025). UK Academy for Information Systems Conference Proceedings 2025. 30.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ukais2025/30