5 pillars of the agentic enterprise ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

WHAT THE HEADLINES MEAN FOR LEADERS Subscribe Click to get this newsletter once a week Brought to you by Alex Panas, global leader of industries, & Axel Karlsson, global leader of functional practices and growth platforms Welcome to the latest edition of Only McKinsey Perspectives. We hope you find our insights useful. Let us know what you think at Alex_Panas@McKinsey.com and Axel_Karlsson@McKinsey.com. —Alex and Axel As a reminder, to better serve you—and spare your inbox—we’ve changed the cadence of Only McKinsey Perspectives to once a week, on Wednesdays. Organizing for an agentic future In the news. AI agents are poised to redefine the digital economy, moving beyond apps to autonomously managed tasks and handling everything from booking travel to paying for goods and services, Business Insider notes. Several tech giants are racing to create the rules and infrastructure for this agentic internet: for example, rolling out new protocols for agent-to-agent communication, backend integration, and secure payments. The first companies to succeed stand to control—and benefit from—the quickly evolving ecosystem, much like web and mobile pioneers did. [Business Insider] Culture will become both the operating glue and the ethical compass of the agentic organization. On McKinsey.com. AI is ushering in the biggest paradigm shift since the industrial and digital revolutions: the “agentic organization,” according to McKinsey Senior Partners Alexander Sukharevsky and Alexis Krivkovich and coauthors. In this new model, AI agents (both virtual and physical) collaborate with humans to deliver high levels of productivity, adaptability, and innovation. The real test for leaders is how to move beyond pilots to building the systems, governance, and culture needed to harness agents responsibly—even before there’s clarity on how the paradigm might evolve. Discover the five core pillars that will define organizations in the agentic age. Prepare for the agentic organization Infrastructure for the digital era In the news. Global demand for AI is fueling an unprecedented rush to build next-generation data centers that can scale the technology’s capabilities and future innovation, according to the Financial Times. Built in massive clusters, these facilities consume vast amounts of power and land—one planned cluster will be almost as large as Manhattan—and are as much infrastructure projects as they are technology assets. While construction is booming, concerns about sustainability and overbuilding persist, prompting data center designers to rethink how they house, cool, and power growing fleets of processing units. [FT] On McKinsey.com. The world has entered an “infrastructure moment,” a period when the magnitude, scope, and nature of infrastructure investments will evolve, say Senior Partners Alastair Green, Ishaan Nangia, and Nicola Sandri. The definition of infrastructure is expanding beyond roads and power plants to more tech-enabled and modular assets, such as fiber-optic networks and electric-vehicle charging stations, the authors note. The biggest opportunities lie at the intersections of seven critical verticals—for example, AI-driven data centers, which straddle both energy and digital systems—that could require an investment of $106 trillion by 2040. Explore the next generation of infrastructure A growing stablecoin ecosystem In the news. Financial and retail companies are looking to issue their own stablecoins, a type of blockchain-based cryptocurrency that maintains a consistent value, Reuters reports. While adoption of this digital currency has increased in recent years, experts note the strategic and technical challenges that companies face in creating or using it. Among these issues, firms must decide whether to issue tokens directly or work with partners. A critical first step will be defining the purpose of their stablecoins—for example, facilitating purchases or speeding up payments. [Reuters] On McKinsey.com. The world of digital currency is evolving quickly, and stablecoins—which are pegged to traditional currencies—have the potential to bring both reliability and change to the financial landscape. Stablecoin circulation is growing: The total value of issued stablecoins increased more than twofold over the past 18 months, and McKinsey predicts that their value could reach up to $2 trillion by 2028. Their benefits, including real-time settlement and reduced transaction costs, could also transform treasury operations and cross-border payments, says McKinsey Partner Matt Higginson. Yet banks will need to balance the stablecoin opportunity with related risks, including regulatory scrutiny and potential deposit flight. Learn more about stablecoins —Edited by Kanika Punwani, editor, Southern California Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here. Or send us feedback—we’d love to hear from you. Follow our thinking McKinsey Insights - Get our latest thinking on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Copyright © 2025 | McKinsey & Company, 3 World Trade Center, 175 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007