The rise of the human–AI workforce

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 w…

What great leaders know about not knowing it all

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, abou…

Follow the money: How FDI is redrawing the global economy

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…

Can the US sustain its competitive edge?

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 …

AI is everywhere. The agentic organization isn’t—yet

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 Sen…

Leadership lessons from private equity CEOs

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…

Trust in the age of agents

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?’ …

What does it take to achieve and sustain growth?

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, Edit…

A new way of thinking about metabolic health

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 sparki…

Special episode: 2026 Davos highlights

This is a special episode of The McKinsey Podcastcovering 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 throu…