What is artificial general intelligence (AGI)?

A profile of a 3d head made of concrete that is sliced in half creating two separate parts. Pink neon binary numbers travel from one half of the a head to the other by a stone bridge that connects the two parts.You’ve read the think pieces. AI—in particular, the generative…

Novel proteins: Consumer appetite for sustainably made ingredients

Ingredients made with biotechnology could play an important role in the future of food—and they’re beginning to come to market. Over the past five years, $4 billion has been invested to develop novel ingredients ranging from mycelium proteins to animal-free eggs. These ingredients are made through fermentation to create proteins…

Shaping tomorrow’s talent agenda for the public sector

Globally, we face major demographic shifts that offer both daunting challenges and transformational opportunities for the future. There are specific ramifications for workforce composition and service delivery in the public sector. In particular, communities are better served when organizations reflect their constituents, paying special attention to the changing needs and…

Global Economics Intelligence executive summary, February 2024

Consumers remain upbeat as retail sales in the main economies show steady growth, despite elevated prices (Exhibit 1). Growing sentiment in the US saw the Consumer Confidence Index (Conference Board) rise to 114.8 in January, up from a revised 108.0 in December. By contrast, consumer confidence in Brazil dropped to…

Seizing opportunities amid the agtech capital drought

As the agriculture technology (agtech) industry adapts to a new normal in fundraising—and a vastly different macroeconomic climate than in years past—investment opportunities are slowly starting to emerge. Instead of waiting on the sidelines for conditions to stabilize, strategic companies and financial investors can use this limited window of opportunity…

Better together: Process and task mining, a powerful AI combo

How do you create a superior customer experience while also improving cost efficiency, productivity, and employee experience? The tension between service and cost is a perennial challenge for organizations, and it becomes particularly acute during periods of economic uncertainty. Many companies are finding themselves in such a period right now.…

The human side of generative AI: Creating a path to productivity

Ever since OpenAI’s ChatGPT exploded into public view in late 2022, the possibilities of generative AI (gen AI) have captured imaginations throughout the business world. When it comes to crafting an effective talent strategy, organizations have focused mostly on how gen AI can increase productivity levels. This is understandable, given…

Southeast Asia quarterly economic review: Proving resilient

Southeast Asia’s economies exhibited robust performance in the fourth quarter 2023. GDP grew in all economies, with growth in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam increasing during this period, while Malaysia and the Philippines recorded slower growth (Exhibit 1). Strong domestic demand, backed by stable employment prospects and easing prices, along…

Insights to Impact: A weekly briefing on creating sustainable and inclusive growth

Subscribe to get the Insights to Impact briefing in your inbox weekly March 14, 2024 This week’s headline findings: Customer demands. Organizational customer care leaders find themselves trapped in no-man’s-land as they balance preparing for an AI-enabled future with managing escalating customer expectations in a rapidly digitizing contact center environment.…

Implementing generative AI with speed and safety

Generative AI (gen AI) presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for companies, with the potential for transformative impact across innovation, growth, and productivity. The technology can now produce credible software code, text, speech, high-fidelity images, and interactive videos. It has identified the potential for millions of new materials through crystal structures and…

Working nine to thrive

At a glance Health can be meaningfully modified by factors outside traditional healthcare systems, including work factors. Employers have considerable opportunities to improve health through six modifiable drivers: social interaction, mindsets and beliefs, productive activity, stress, economic security, and sleep. Globally, improving employee health and well-being could create $3.7 trillion…

The future of Medicare Advantage

This year US health insurers have to navigate strong crosscurrents from demographic shifts, regulatory changes, and member preferences. How they react now can have an impact for years to come. By Gabe Isaacson, Dan Jamieson, Sonja Pedersen-Green, and Cara Repasky The undeniable story of early 2024 for US health insurers…

Where is customer care in 2024?

Customer care leaders are facing their greatest challenge in decades. They must prepare their organizations for an AI-enabled future while simultaneously meeting tough commercial targets and rising customer expectations. Our latest global survey suggests that many companies are struggling on all these fronts.Major disruptions are always painful, and the transition…

What can we expect in China in the year of the dragon?

As 2024 gains momentum, it’s significant to note that this year is marked by the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac. The dragon, symbolizing strength and good fortune, frames the backdrop for China’s journey forward after a challenging 2023. The previous year saw China navigating the aftermath…

Bringing innovation to a not-for-profit setting

In this episode of The Committed Innovator, American Red Cross chief innovation officer Sajit Joseph speaks with McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth about the challenges and opportunities involved with innovation in a not-for-profit setting, where the goal is return on impact and teams can include volunteers. This is an edited…

Using M&A as a launchpad for transformation

M &A can offer a powerful lever for executing strategy, transforming organizations, and delivering exceptional value creation. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, two McKinsey experts talk about how executives under pressure to create more value for shareholders and stakeholders can benefit from using a transaction…

The journey toward AI-enabled railway companies

Many types of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have accelerated in recent years due to tumbling costs of data storage and processing, rapidly expanding data availability, and improved data storage and modelling techniques. In general, analytical AI can analyze historical data and make numeric predictions, while generative AI (gen AI) allows…

Analyzing the CEO–CMO relationship and its effect on growth

CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategies are twice as likely as their peers to have greater than 5 percent annual growth, according to a recent survey McKinsey conducted with input from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). CEOs and chief marketing officers (CMOs) must work…

Leading through uncertainty: An interview with Neeti Bhalla Johnson

Inspiring leaders motivate their teams to embrace the opportunities and growth inherent in change, according to Neeti Bhalla Johnson, the president of Global Risk Solutions at Liberty Mutual Insurance (Liberty). Born in India and raised in Kenya, Bhalla Johnson is passionate about furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion at the insurer,…

The human element is key: An interview with Barbara Karuth-Zelle

Barbara Karuth-Zelle, COO and board member of Allianz, is passionate about driving technology and AI innovation for a sustainable future. She’s spent more than 20 years at the insurer—including as CEO of Allianz Technology, its internal technology service provider—and is known for her ability to assemble diverse teams that get…

The business of risk-taking: An interview with Jayne Plunkett

Jayne Plunkett, chief risk officer (CRO) of pan-Asian insurer AIA Group, has held leadership roles across the full spectrum of insurance products and services, including primary insurance, reinsurance, frontline underwriting, and risk management. In a conversation with Bernhard Kotanko, McKinsey senior partner and head of the firm’s Asia–Pacific insurance practice,…

Strategies for Asian business navigating a new era

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:19 mins read

Asia’s business leaders should prepare themselves for potential turbulence as global dynamics shift and challenges escalate. Over the past three decades, Asia has reaped more benefits from a globalizing world than any other region, but that landscape is becoming more contested, and risks are rising. The region’s rise to prominence…

Vietnam manufacturing sector – From low cost to high productivity

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

In the past decade, manufacturing in Vietnam has been at the epicenter of the country’s high growth. This sector contributed more than 20 percent to the country’s GDP and has been an anchor in Vietnam’s trade balance, helping to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). It played a significant role in…

The next wave could be Alternative-seafood solutions

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read

Billions of people rely on healthy oceans as a source of jobs and food, and demand for fish protein is only increasing. Projections show growth of 14 percent by 2030 versus 2020 levels, driven by growing markets in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. That said, the amount of wild-caught…

Some employees are destroying value – Others are building it

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:20 mins read

The pandemic has forced major changes in how, when, and where people work. It has also bedeviled employers. Due in part to new hybrid and remote-working models, companies are struggling to find objective ways to gauge employee effectiveness—a critical challenge as labor costs have increased and worker productivity has declined.…

The role of natural gas to a cleaner, more reliable power

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

Across the United States, renewable energy sources are impacting natural gas generation. The growth of renewables in the grid, compounded by the increased electrification of energy demand, will expose the grid to the risks of an intermittent renewables supply to meet growing power demand. As a result, in the coming…

How can you measure software developer productivity

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

Compared with other critical business functions such as sales or customer operations, software development is perennially undermeasured. The long-held belief by many in tech is that it’s not possible to do it correctly—and that, in any case, only trained engineers are knowledgeable enough to assess the performance of their peers.…

This is How you can make a strong start as a CEO

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:17 mins read

In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, two authors of a recent article on the CEO transition discuss how incoming leaders can make the most of their first 12 months in the role. Carolyn Dewar, who co-leads McKinsey’s CEO excellence work, is a co-author of last year’s bestseller…

How feed supplements can reduce methane emissions in agriculture

Mark van Nieuwland is the vice president of Bovaer, a methane-reducing feed additive, at Swiss-Dutch nutrition, health, and beauty company dsm-firmenich (DSM). Joshua Katz, a McKinsey partner and leader in the agriculture and private equity space, and Wilson Roen, a McKinsey consultant and sustainability fellow, talked with Mark about the…

Coherent’s Chuck Mattera on growing a $5 billion company

Chuck Mattera, chair and CEO of Coherent, formerly II-VI, has spent a lifetime building businesses by harnessing breakthrough technologies. At Coherent, he has championed a strategy focused on acquisitions to achieve scale and deliver innovations in the industrial, communications, electronics, and instrumentation markets. McKinsey’s André Andonian and Abhijit Mahindroo sat…

Twelve disruptions changing the world by the War in Ukraine

Russia’s war in Ukraine is an ongoing tragedy, destroying lives and livelihoods in Ukraine and altering economic patterns worldwide. In May 2022, we set out an initial analysis of 12 disruptions that the war could unleash. With the passage of time, it seems increasingly likely that the war, coming so…

Electric-vehicle buyers demand new experiences

When buying an electric vehicle, consumers want an experience that matches their expectations of the car itself. That is, something exciting and innovative but also reliable and predictable. They expect to both transact online and negotiate with a real person, and they still need to take a test drive. However,…

The hotel of the future

How will hotel operators use new technologies, respond to travelers’ changing needs and preferences, and become more sustainable? Five leaders of McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice envision what the hotel experience might be like in the 2030s. The following transcript has been edited for clarity. Convenience and customization Caroline…

Where could $374 billion in dry powder go?

Private capital loved software —or it did for about a decade, during which capital deployment skyrocketed. In more recent quarters, software markets have reflected global macroeconomic uncertainty. Publicly listed companies’ multiples swooned; access to debt markets tightened; and private markets continued to hold large amounts of dry powder. Developments in…

A monthly update on the state of the US consumer: July 2023

After signs of improving economic sentiment in the spring, consumer spending seems to be in a summer slump. Across age and income groups, American consumers continue to spend less than they did a year prior—except on travel. Real year-over-year spending has declined for the third month in a row, while…

Really, What is psychological safety?

When have you been your most productive, creative, or innovative? Think back to a time when you really made yourself proud, and try to remember the environment you were working in. Maybe it’s your current job, if you have challenging work and supportive, engaged colleagues. Maybe it was at university,…

How Logistics Disruptors use Data insights for greener shipping

ZeroNorth uses data to help shipping companies become more efficient and, by extension, greener. Its interactive platform provides simulations, predictions, analysis, and data-driven insights that can aid shipping companies in their quest to traverse oceans while consuming less fuel. Founded in June 2020, the Copenhagen-based start-up now has about 200…

Revenue growth techniques for restaurants

American restaurant executives are bracing for another challenging year. While some supply challenges and immediate inflationary pressures have abated, many leaders anticipate hefty annual increases in labor and input costs over the next five years. Restaurants also continue to endure pressure to meet evolving consumer demands in an increasingly competitive…

VCs: Underestimating some start-up founders can cost you

Pervasive societal inequity in the United States is strikingly evident in the start-up world. In 2022, Black and Latino founders received only 1 percent and 1.5 percent respectively of total US venture capital (VC) funding. Women-founded teams received 1.9 percent of VC funds, and only 0.1 percent of VC funds…