Unlock AI’s full potential Copy

Artificial intelligence

Arrived in the workplace and has the potential to be as transformative as the steam engine was to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution.1 With powerful and capable large language models (LLMs) developed by Anthropic, Cohere, Google, Meta, Mistral, OpenAI, and others, we have entered a new information technology era. McKinsey research sizes the long-term AI opportunity at $4.4 trillion in added productivity growth potential from corporate use cases.

Therein lies the challenge

The long-term potential of AI is great, but the short-term returns are unclear. Over the next three years, 92 percent of companies plan to increase their AI investments. But while nearly all companies are investing in AI, only 1 percent of leaders call their companies “mature” on the deployment spectrum, meaning that AI is fully integrated into workflows and drives substantial business outcomes. The big question is how business leaders can deploy capital and steer their organizations closer to AI maturity.

This research report, prompted by Reid Hoffman’s book Superagency:

What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future,3 asks a similar question: How can companies harness AI to amplify human agency and unlock new levels of creativity and productivity in the workplace? AI could drive enormous positive and disruptive change. This transformation will take some time, but leaders must not be dissuaded. Instead, they must advance boldly today to avoid becoming uncompetitive tomorrow. The history of major economic and technological shifts shows that such moments can define the rise and fall of companies. Over 40 years ago, the internet was born. Since then, companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft have attained trillion-dollar market capitalizations. Even more profoundly, the internet changed the anatomy of work and access to information. AI now is like the internet many years ago: The risk for business leaders is not thinking too big, but rather too small.

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This report explores companies’ technology and business readiness for AI adoption (see sidebar “About the survey”). It concludes that employees are ready for AI. The biggest barrier to success is leadership.

ShareSidebarAbout the survey

Chapter 1

looks at the rapid advancement of technology over the past two years and its implications for business adoption of AI.

Chapter 2

delves into the attitudes and perceptions of employees and leaders. Our research shows that employees are more ready for AI than their leaders imagine. In fact, they are already using AI on a regular basis; are three times more likely than leaders realize to believe that AI will replace 30 percent of their work in the next year; and are eager to gain AI skills. Still, AI optimists are only a slight majority in the workplace; a large minority (41 percent) are more apprehensive and will need additional support. This is where millennials, who are the most familiar with AI and are often in managerial roles, can be strong advocates for change.

Chapter 3

looks at the need for speed and safety in AI deployment. While leaders and employees want to move faster, trust and safety are top concerns. About half of employees worry about AI inaccuracy and cybersecurity risks. That said, employees express greater confidence that their own companies, versus other organizations, will get AI right. The onus is on business leaders to prove them right, by making bold and responsible decisions.

Chapter 4

examines how companies risk losing ground in the AI race if leaders do not set bold goals. As the hype around AI subsides, companies should put a heightened focus on practical applications that empower employees in their daily jobs. These applications can create competitive moats and generate measurable ROI. Across industries, functions, and geographies, companies that invest strategically can go beyond using AI to drive incremental value and instead create transformative change.

Chapter 5

looks at what is required for leaders to set their teams up for success with AI. The challenge of AI in the workplace is not a technology challenge. It is a business challenge that calls upon leaders to align teams, address AI headwinds, and rewire their companies for change.

Ch 1: An innovation as powerful as the steam engineCh 2: Employees are ready for AI; now leaders must step upCh 3: Delivering speed and safetyCh 4: Embracing bigger ambitionsCh 5: Technology is not the barrier to scaleConclusion: Meeting the AI future

Chapter 1 An innovation as powerful as the steam engine

Imagine a world where machines not only perform physical labor but also think, learn, and make autonomous decisions. This world includes humans in the loop, bringing people and machines together in a state of superagency that increases personal productivity and creativity (see sidebar “AI superagency”). This is the transformative potential of AI, a technology with a potential impact poised to surpass even the biggest innovations of the past, from the printing press to the automobile. AI does not just automate tasks but goes further by automating cognitive functions. Unlike any invention before, AI-powered software can adapt, plan, guide—and even make—decisions. That’s why AI can be a catalyst for unprecedented economic growth and societal change in virtually every aspect of life. It will reshape our interaction with technology and with one another.