Nearly eight in ten companies report using gen AI—yet, paradoxically, just as many report no significant bottom-line impact. Now, with the rapid rise of agentic AI, organizations must continue to upskill their workforces, adapt their tech infrastructure, and deploy agent-specific governance mechanisms. “AI agents offer a way to break out of the gen AI paradox,” write McKinsey Senior Partners Alexander Sukharevsky, Klemens Hjartar, Lari Hämäläinen, Stéphane Bout, and coauthors. “That’s because agents have the potential to automate complex business processes—combining autonomy, planning, memory, and integration—to shift gen AI from a reactive tool to a proactive, goal-driven virtual collaborator.”
