The McKinsey Podcast

Geopolitical surprise has become a permanent cost of doing business—and a one-size-fits-all approach to scenario planning can’t keep pace with it. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, Partner and Global Director of Geopolitics Ziad Haider joins Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro to unpack five tools for sharpening foresight: horizon scanning, scenario planning, contingency planning, simulations, and tabletop exercises. They discuss why so few companies use these tools at scale, how AI is starting to reshape geopolitical risk assessment, and why human judgment remains essential for seeing around corners.
The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Lucia Rahilly and Roberta Fusaro.
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Theme music composed, performed, and produced by Joy Ngiaw.
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Nearly half of all paid work hours are tied to physical tasks, from moving and making things to inspecting equipment and transporting goods. Today, much of that work remains beyond the reach of traditional automation. Physical AI could begin to change that, expanding the range of tasks machines can perform reliably, safely, and economically. That means more than robots that can outpace Usain Bolt; it means intelligent, adaptable systems that “sense, decide, and act based on the physical world around them,” according to McKinsey Senior Partner Mark Patel. And that physical world is “full of corner cases.”
On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, Patel and McKinsey Partner Ani Kelkar join Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to explain what physical AI looks like, where it could create value, and what leaders should know now to begin taking advantage of its potential for impact.
The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Lucia Rahilly and Roberta Fusaro.
This episode has been adapted from our McKinsey Live webinar series.
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What happens when AI agents can reason through problems well enough to complete real work on their own? This episode of The McKinsey Podcast offers answers to that question and more from OpenAI’s chair Bret Taylor, who is also cofounder of Sierra—which helps some of the world’s biggest companies build sophisticated AI agents, including about 40 percent of the Fortune 50. Taylor speaks with Eric Kutcher, McKinsey senior partner and chair of North America, about where AI is already reshaping customer service, sales, and software engineering; why open-weight models will always have a place despite the frontier labs’ cost advantage; and why he thinks the data center buildout—despite its real financial risk—is a bet the US needs to make.
In this recurring series on The McKinsey Podcast, Kutcher speaks with top CEOs about the practice of leadership.
The McKinsey Podcast is regularly cohosted by Lucia Rahilly and Roberta Fusaro.

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The toughest transformation problems aren’t always strategic or operational. They’re human: the instinct to play it safe, protect what’s ours, trust who we know, and wait for change to pass. Individually, these behaviors can seem perfectly rational. Collectively, they can bring a transformation to a standstill. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Senior Partner Kurt Strovink and Partner join Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to discuss five collective-action problems that inhibit transformation success, and what leaders need to know to spot them early—and solve them.

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Theme music composed, performed, and produced by Joy Ngiaw.
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Over the past 100 years, humanity has made stunning advances: longer lives, higher incomes, and billions of people lifted out of poverty. Much of that progress remains uneven and incomplete, however. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, we share an adapted conversation from the McKinsey Global Institute’s (MGI) podcast A Century of Plenty, which draws on insights from the institute’s recent book of the same name. The book’s coauthors, McKinsey’s Chris Bradley, Marc Canal, Nick Leung, and Sven Smit, explore whether a new era of broad-based prosperity will extend into the next century. After, McKinsey Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro is joined by coauthor Sven Smit, senior partner emeritus, to discuss where the next big ideas will come from and how leaders should think about knowledge and judgment in an AI-driven world.
For more insights from the book and to hear more from its authors, tune into MGI’s new podcast series A Century of Plenty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Lucia Rahilly and Roberta Fusaro.
Any unanswered questions about this episode? Send them our way at: TheMcKinseyPodcast@mckinsey.com
Theme music composed, performed, and produced by Joy Ngiaw.
See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information