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. In this issue, we examine what separates AI-native companies from the rest of the pack and why geopolitical scenario planning has become one of the most urgent strategic capabilities leaders can develop. We appreciate the opportunity to connect and hope you find our perspectives useful and thought provoking. You can reach us at Alex_Panas@McKinsey.com and Becca_Coggins@McKinsey.com. Thank you, as ever.

—Alex and Becca

What AI-native companies do differently. In a 20-person agtech venture, AI now handles more than half the tasks across nearly every business function, enabling humans to do what they do best—in this case, providing novel scientific judgment and nurturing partner relationships. At one DevSecOps platform, nontechnical staff use AI to fix bugs and rename features without touching engineering. These examples are not outliers; they are early indicators of how the most capable companies are using AI to reconstruct work—and where value accrues. McKinsey researchers spent time with leaders at 15 such companies and distilled what separates them from the rest into seven operating truths.

A better way to read the world. In a recent McKinsey survey, fewer than one in three respondents rated their organization’s geopolitical risk management as mature—yet more than half said scenario planning and strategic foresight would meaningfully strengthen their business’s resilience. That gap is costly. Geopolitical disruptions have repeatedly outpaced conventional monitoring, and the velocity of new shocks shows no sign of slowing. Our latest research examines how AI enables a more rigorous discipline: detecting early signals, dynamically tracking the landscape, and surfacing patterns that human analysts alone could miss. 

We hope you find these insights 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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