Although AI use has broadened, McKinsey’s research shows that most organizations are still in the piloting phase and have yet to scale usage enterprise-wide—making the key question for leaders in 2026 not “What’s next in tech?” but “How do we make tech truly work for us, sustainably and at scale?”
To that end, here are three McKinsey partners on the tech resolutions that forward-thinking CxOs can make for the year ahead.
Senior Partner Anusha Dhasarathy on building the foundations for scalable AI
For AI to deliver real value in 2026, leaders need to build the foundations for the entire enterprise to use it safely and at scale.
This starts with leading by example and adopting AI within the tech organization by redesigning the product development life cycle around AI or using automation in IT operations or data analytics. When leaders model AI-enabled work, the rest of the organization can follow.
The next step is building the platforms that make enterprise-wide AI both resilient and repeatable. The most successful leaders are thinking in terms of platforms, not isolated solutions, and treating their tech stack as a strategic asset, with reusable components and stable environments where teams can innovate confidently. That requires reimagining the full AI architecture, from data ingestion and storage to governance, semantic and agentic layers, and the consumption experiences that bring AI into daily workflows.
As AI becomes embedded in critical decisions, system fragility is not an option. Modern, modular architectures; robust, well-governed data pipelines; and controls that evolve as fast as the technology itself are essential. These shifts aren’t easy, but they’re certainly important to creating sustainable impact.
Senior Partner Lieven Van der Veken on focus as a future-shaping force
While 2025 brought many exciting changes, we’re still at the beginning of understanding technology’s full impact. To me, 2026 will be about shifting individual behaviors, turning curiosity into conviction, and driving adoption to unlock real value for companies, institutions, and society.
The key to that is focus. I’m talking about moving from a long list of intentions and often isolated experiments to bold, concentrated effort in a small set of areas where one can fundamentally reshape how teams operate, what processes look like, how decisions get made. We’re at a point where impact depends on taking dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people and redefining their work with technology at the core. We’re at the point of going deep.
It will also be the year of ensuring AI is inclusive. As AI fundamentally changes how work gets done, we must clarify the roles humans will play, develop the capabilities AI can’t replicate, and close the widening tech talent gap so no one gets left behind.
Getting that done will require rethinking how institutions partner. It will require forging deeper, more substantive collaborations across the ecosystem where organizations learn each other’s language, solve shared business challenges, and co-create meaningful solutions. No one will figure this out alone.
Ultimately, it all comes back to focus and committing deeply to what matters most. That’s the resolution I’m carrying into the year ahead.
Senior Partner Hrishika Vuppala on making learning a mindset
We’re operating in a moment of disruption that many compare to the industrial revolution. And while that brings uncertainty, it also offers enormous potential for progress—and each of us has a role to play.
A key part of that responsibility is being genuinely open to proactive and continuous learning. It’s important to stay curious, get educated, and embrace the idea that anyone can be a teacher in this new era.
I heard a great example just yesterday: a relatively early-tenure colleague joined a call to coach a university’s president on how to use AI agents to automate time-consuming tasks. It flipped the traditional dynamic on its head. Instead of the most senior client speaking with the most senior McKinsey leader, the counselor was the person who was truly AI-native and had built real dexterity in this new world, regardless of tenure.
That’s the mindset we need: non-hierarchical, open to learning from anyone, and willing to stretch beyond familiar norms. Timeless soft skills like curiosity, asking the right questions, challenging the status quo, and being resourceful matter more than ever. And as the hard skills evolve, those who choose to keep learning will be the ones who thrive.
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