麦肯锡-变革推动者：代理时代的目标、决策及其对CEO的影响（英）

October 2025QuantumBlack, AI by McKinseyThe change agent: Goals, decisions, and implications for CEOs in the agentic ageCompanies are feeling agentic AI growing pains. Here’s what CEOs can do to move past them and position their companies to succeed.This article is a collaborative effort by Alex Singla, Alexander Sukharevsky, Lari Hämäläinen, Oana Cheta, Olli Salo, Pallav Jain, Raghav Raghunathan, Sandra Durth, Stéphane Bout, and Vito Di Leo, representing views from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey; McKinsey Technology; and McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance and Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practices.Executives are fond of quoting hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who is credited with saying: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” This is sound business advice at one level. But that puck is moving a whole lot faster than it used to as agentic AI rapidly evolves.The call to move faster may seem tone deaf as CEOs and their senior teams struggle to see bottom-line value from early gen AI investments. Developing and scaling gen AI use cases have proven frustratingly challenging. Some executives remain unconvinced that AI agents will have a significant impact—at least in the short term—and have stepped back from their investments.1As CEOs navigate the uncertainty, it is worth acknowledging both the pace and potential scope of the change that is happening. AI agents—software systems built with gen AI that have the ability to plan, act, remember, and learn to achieve predefined outcomes autonomously—are evolving quickly and, as they mature, could completely change how companies are run and how they generate value (see sidebar “Key trends shaping gen AI and agents”). In fact, this “trough of disillusionment” period, as John Lovelock of Gartner recently called it,2 is an opportunity for executives to jump ahead of their competitors.How CEOs manage this change will determine how well they can capture the benefits. Although AI agents are in their infancy, early lessons and experiences highlight four mindsets and actions that can position CEOs to prosper:— Reimagine what’s possible. Much of the thinking around agentic AI today is still focused on automating basic tasks or augmenting knowledge. The real win, however, will come from much bolder aspirations of rearchitected workflows and organizations built around agent-first systems.— Act with urgency and start the learning. The rapid rate of improvement of gen AI agents means that a wait-and-see approach is potentially a high-risk move (see sidebar “Breakthroughs in gen AI and agents”). Early practical learnings are invaluable in quickly building a competitive advantage as the technology matures.— Tackle scale and long-term competitiveness issues now. Critical decisions around technology, trust, governance, what to buy versus what to build, capabilities, and talent are important to drive a wider transformation. While you experiment, start forming your strategy and devel