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 share our yearly review of technology trends and new research on AI start-ups in Europe. 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

The shift to hardware. The technology story of 2026 has been the increased focus on the hardware that enables technological acceleration. As our colleagues observe in Technology Trends Outlook 2026, “Innovation is accelerating in the power grids and chips that underpin the data center boom; in the intelligent robots that embody AI; in the agentic systems discovering new chemical compounds; and in the launch pads sending thousands of satellites into orbit.” In the recently released report, we examine the 14 trends that are redefining business, policy, and investment.

Europe and AI technology. European start-ups that build AI technology for specific industries now raise 67 percent as much funding as their US counterparts, up from 9 percent in 2018. As companies move from testing AI models to redesigning workflows, much of the future value may come from applying AI to complex, regulated processes, an area in which many European companies have experience. New research from our colleagues and Boardwave examines what this means for founders, software companies, and investors.

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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