OUR BEST IDEAS FOR THE C-SUITE

Welcome to the latest edition of the CEO Shortlist, a biweekly newsletter of our best ideas for the C-suite. This week, we look at how agentic AI is poised to revolutionize online buying and selling. We appreciate the opportunity to connect and hope you find our perspectives novel and insightful. You can reach us at Alex_Panas@McKinsey.com and Axel_Karlsson@McKinsey.com. Thank you, as ever.

—Alex and Axel

The end of click, scroll, tap? Companies have spent decades refining consumer journeys, fine-tuning every digital interaction. But in the era of agentic commerce, the consumer no longer travels alone. Millions of consumers are starting to send digital proxies into the fray, trusting them to find products, book travel—even buy a house. It’s a sea change on the order of the early-2000s wave of e-commerce. CEOs in every consumer industry can come up to speed quickly with our new report on agentic commerce. 

The agentic tide could lift financial institutions. We estimate that AI could save financial institutions up to 20 percent of their total costs. But there’s a catch: In the longer term, we expect customers to use AI agents to find better places to park their cash and better rewards on their credit cards, which may erode the banking industry’s profits. How can banks capture the savings and avoid the pain of losing deposits? It’s the question of the day. Answers can be found in our Global Banking Annual Review 2025.

We hope you find these ideas helpful. See you in a couple of weeks with more McKinsey ideas for the CEO and others in the C-suite.

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