BRINGING OUR BEST INSIGHTS TO THE DAY’S NEWS
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Brought to you by Alex Panas, global leader of industries, & Becca Coggins, 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 Becca_Coggins@McKinsey.com.
—Alex and Becca
In the news. Global trade remained largely stable in 2025, despite the increase in US tariffs. The Wall Street Journal reports that the United Nations expects the value of traded goods and services to increase 7% year over year, while the World Trade Organization—which had earlier forecasted a decline in world trade flows for the year—pinpoints several reasons why trade levels have been resilient. These include lower tariff rates than were initially expected and growing US imports in AI-related areas, such as semiconductors and processors. However, one economist notes this resilience could be tested in 2026 if China redirects more of its exports to Europe at very low prices. [WSJ]
On McKinsey.com. Despite the headwinds from tariffs and a raft of other geopolitical issues, global leaders continue to cooperate at the same level as in previous years. That is among the key insights from The Global Cooperation Barometer 2026, a joint effort by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum, whose annual 2026 meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is underway this week. The report analyzed how public and private sector stakeholders work together to advance critical corporate, national, and global interests. While overall cooperation is holding steady, the report found some shifts in the makeup of the barometer’s five pillars: trade and capital cooperation flattened, for instance, while innovation and technology cooperation increased alongside the rise of AI, 5G, and other formats. Learn about new ways to build resilience and strengthen economies through cooperation.Cooperate to meet today’s moment
In the news. The AI boom bears some resemblance to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, which eventually ended with a crash. But history may not repeat itself: The New York Times notes that the two periods are different in many ways. For one, AI is being funded and led by multitrillion-dollar companies that have other revenue-generating avenues, unlike the start-ups that dominated the dot-com era. What’s more, today’s business leaders are generally supportive of AI adoption, whereas the internet was a largely unfamiliar concept for many people in the 1990s—and there are fewer regulatory barriers to AI than there were during the dot-com boom. [NYT]On McKinsey.com. Agentic AI, the latest frontier in the AI revolution, could fundamentally transform workflows in a range of domains. But it could also take some time to move from hype to real impact. As McKinsey’s Dave Kerr, Michael Chui, and Stephen Xu note in a video Explainer, agentic AI may not be the right technology for business problems that can be solved with rule-based systems. Instead, agents can work together—and with humans—to support customers and help employees make massive productivity gains. Guardrails can help organizations realize the full value from agents and manage the risks: by, for example, setting up a cross-functional risk committee to pick the right vendors and decide between open-source or closed-source models.Deploy agentic AI for impact
In the news. To move faster and further in an economically volatile environment, corporate boards are focusing on people: more specifically, on the leaders of the future, according to HR Dive. In a survey of more than 24,000 members of a board-director association, respondents cite CEO succession planning as the most important board practice that needs improvement this year. And, in an environment that directors believe will be volatile in 2026, they also note the need to improve their organizations’ strategy execution and approach to workforce readiness. [HR Dive]On McKinsey.com. As organizations work to build their next generation of leaders, the risk function is an important source of high-performing talent. McKinsey’s Farah Dilber, Ida Kristensen, and coauthors note that chief risk officers have an opportunity to turn the risk function into a leadership factory for the entire organization. After all, risk leaders and their teams operate across businesses and functions and have a say in most high-priority decisions that a company confronts, including regulatory responses, crisis management, and strategic transformations. The risk function also includes subject matter experts and versatile generalists, both of whom have the broad skillsets needed to become well-rounded, enterprise-wide leaders.Elevate the risk function’s talent
—Edited by Arshiya Khullar, senior editor, Gurugram
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