The McKinsey Podcast

The first wave of AI adoption has been all about efficiency gains. But what happens when everyone else, using the same tools, is experiencing the same productivity improvements? Where will competitive advantage come from then? McKinsey research suggests that the companies that outperform with AI will be those that rethink customer experiences, redesign how work gets done, and build operating model...

In an era of economic uncertainty and accelerating technological disruption, creating new businesses has become less of a growth option and more of a strategic imperative. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior Partner Jason Bello speaks with Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro about McKinsey’s new research on corporate venture building. They examine why serial builders outp...

Long before someone takes the corner office, they need to build the skills and rapport that will help them thrive once they move in. That CEO journey is the focus of this episode of  The McKinsey Podcast   with McKinsey Partner  Blair Epstein , Senior Partner  Carolyn Dewar , Partner  Julia McClatchy , and Senior Partner  Vik Malhotra . They share their collectiv...

As AI capabilities accelerate, nearly anyone can create software. The real business constraint is no longer code, but judgment: how quickly an organization can learn, adapt, and redeploy talent at scale. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy joins McKinsey’s North America Chair Eric Kutcher to dig into how AI is industrializing intelligence, supercharging...

Affordable luxury: It may sound like an oxymoron, but in an uncertain economy, it’s striking a chord with cautious consumers looking for value—and expecting more from the brands they buy. “Brands are actively thinking about the fact that people are shifting their spending,” according to McKinsey Senior Partner Gemma D’Auria . “If they want to stay relevant, they...

Tariff tumult. Shifting geopolitical alliances. AI acceleration. Structural shifts are reshaping global trade. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior Partner Shubham Singhal and McKinsey Partner Jeongmin Seong speak with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about how to adapt to the current phase of global trade reconfiguration—from where to manufacture to supply chain...

McKinsey’s latest research on global banking demonstrates that artificial intelligence isn’t just another efficiency play for financial institutions; it represents a fundamental shift in how these companies manage costs, attract and retain customers, and stay ahead of the competition. In this episode, Ido Segev , McKinsey senior partner and Roberta Fusaro, editorial director talk about...

For more than a century, medicine has largely followed a one-size-fits-all model—but that paradigm is beginning to break. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, joins Eric Kutcher, McKinsey’s North America chair, to explore how mRNA technology is transforming healthcare. From the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines to new approaches to rare...

A historic wave of ownership transitions is set to reshape the backbone of the US economy. The fate of jobs, local spending, and wealth creation all hinge on whether enough qualified—and diverse—buyers can step in to continue to pave the way for small business ownership. In this episode, Shelley Stewart III, McKinsey senior partner and Roberta Fusaro, editorial director, talk about the...

As generative and agentic AI reshape how work gets done, the real divide isn’t who has the best ideas—it’s who can turn them into real results at speed and scale. In this webinar, McKinsey Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly speaks with Senior Partners  Kate Smaje  and  Robert Levin  about the updated  Rewired  playbook—and why winning...

Most leaders herald the promise of AI, but many employees see it as a looming threat—a modern echo of Annie Oakley’s classic lines: “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you.” What does it take, then, to lead constructive partnerships between humans and AI agents at work? In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior Partner Alexis...

People often expect their leaders to have all the answers; David Novak built his career by challenging that assumption. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , the former CEO and cofounder of Yum! Brands and current chair of Versant speaks with Eric Kutcher , McKinsey’s chair of North America, about the experiences that shaped his leadership—from engaging with front-line franchisees...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) used to sit in the background—important, but distant from day-to-day strategy. That’s no longer true. Today, massive capital commitments into areas like AI, semiconductors, and clean energy are signaling which industries will scale, where supply chains will land, and which regions will dominate. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior P...

The US has had a phenomenal run of success: at 250 years old, it’s home to the world’s most competitive economy, accounting for more than a quarter of global GDP and more than half of the world’s top 100 companies. But America also confronts a raft of new challenges—mounting national debt, eroding infrastructure, slipping test scores, persistent income disparity, and more&m...

Yes, AI is astonishing: fast, powerful, and learning every day. But even as leaders strike up new pilots across their organizations, most still struggle to translate experimentation into enterprise value—and now, agentic AI is raising the stakes. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior Partner Alexis Krivkovich speaks with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about what...

Companies backed by private equity (PE) tend to transform faster and more often than public or family-owned firms do, leading to consistently outperforming their peers. Marla Capozzi and Sacha Ghai , McKinsey leaders, researched nearly 300 CEOs across PE and private-capital companies to define their tactics and share their best practices with others. They and their coauthors published the findings...

Many leaders can get agentic pilots rolling—but realizing ROI can mean activating thousands of AI agents enterprise-wide. Is your organization ready? “Agency isn’t a feature—it’s a transfer of decision rights,” says McKinsey Partner Rich Isenberg . “The question shifts from ‘Is the model accurate?’ to ‘Who’s accountable when the sys...

McKinsey research has found that while many leaders believe they’ve adopted and implemented productive mindsets for growth, those attitudes and ambitions don’t always translate into the behaviors and actions necessary to achieve their growth objectives. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro speaks with McKinsey Senior Partners Greg Kelly and Jill Z...

On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , Lars Hartenstein , senior fellow at the McKinsey Health Institute, and Roberta Fusaro, an editorial director at McKinsey, discuss the findings from McKinsey’s recent research on obesity and metabolic health —specifically, the potential interventions for sparking a metabolic health revolution, the economic impact of improving outcomes, and the t...

This is a special episode of The McKinsey Podcast covering last week’s meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. McKinsey Senior Partners Becca Coggins and Shelley Stewart III speak with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about what was top of mind for CEOs—from geopolitics to leading through the AI moment to the faster-than-expected arrival of humanoid robots at scale. Theme...

AI has yet to deliver the ROI many leaders expected. What are they getting wrong? “This is probably the biggest, most complex transformation we’ve seen—but it’s 80 percent business transformation and 20 percent tech,” according to McKinsey’s North America Chair Eric Kutcher . “That’s different from how most people have thought about it.” On thi...

McKinsey’s  Bill Wiseman ,  Bob Sternfels ,  Martin Kellner , and  Steffen Fuchs  were on the ground at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In this special episode of  The McKinsey Podcast , they tell us about the tools and themes that most resonated with them—breakthrough AI applications, advances in mobility, and more. Theme mu...

Think about your org chart. Now imagine it features both your current colleagues—humans, if you’re like most of us—and AI agents. That’s not science fiction; it’s happening. And it’s happening relatively quickly, according to McKinsey Senior Partner  Jorge Amar . In this episode of  The McKinsey Podcast , originally broadcast on  McKinsey Tal...

People are asked to update the operating systems on their phones all the time. What if leaders applied that same kind of polishing and bug fixing to themselves? McKinsey research shows that executives who periodically review and revise their priorities, roles, time, and energy tend to be more productive, work more consciously, and drive change more effectively. In this episode of The McKinsey Podc...

Banking has had a couple of very good years—the best, in fact, since the global financial crisis of 2007–09. Yet to some, the industry’s outlook seems less buoyant than recent profitability might suggest. On this episode of  The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey Senior Partners Klaus Dallerup and Pradip Patiath speak with McKinsey Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about McKi...