08/01/2025

Seizing the Agentic AI Advantage

Here's a CEO playbook to solve the gen AI paradox

Even before the advent of gen AI, artificial intelligence had already carved out a key place in the enterprise, powering advanced prediction, classification and optimization capabilities. And the technology’s estimated value potential was already immense—between $11 trillion and $18 trillion globally—mainly in the fields of marketing (powering capabilities such as personalized email targeting and customer segmentation), sales (lead scoring) and supply chain (inventory optimization and demand forecasting). Yet AI was largely the domain of experts. As a result, adoption across the rank and file tended to be slow. From 2018 to 2022, for example, AI adoption remained relatively stagnant, with about 50 percent of companies deploying the technology in just one business function, according to McKinsey research.

Gen AI has extended the reach of traditional AI in three breakthrough areas: information synthesis, content generation, and communication in human language. McKinsey estimates that the technology has the potential to unlock $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in additional value on top of the value potential of traditional analytical AI.

Two and a half years after the launch of ChatGPT, gen AI has reshaped how enterprises engage with AI. Its potentially transformative power lies not only in the new capabilities gen AI introduces but also in its ability to democratize access to advanced AI technologies across organizations. This democratization has led to widespread growth in awareness of, and experimentation with, AI: According to McKinsey’s most recent Global Survey on AI, more than 78 percent of companies are now using gen AI in at least one business function (up from 55 percent a year earlier).

Please select this link to read the complete report from McKinsey.