Stop buying AI tools.
At least until your people feel safe enough to tell you how the work really gets done.
I'll say it plainly. AI readiness is a people question. The tech is the easy part.
McKinsey's 2026 survey shows it.
80%
say AI has improved their own productivity
37%
can link any effect on profit to AI, the same as last year
6%
are AI high performers, also unchanged
The difference sits in the work itself, and in whether people feel safe to change it.
AI is everywhere. Profit hasn't moved.
McKinsey published The State of AI in 2026 in August. They surveyed 1,719 people in 97 countries.
Nearly nine in ten say their organisation uses AI regularly in at least one area.
44% say AI is now scaling across the business. A year ago it was 38%.
56% use AI in three or more parts of the business, up from 51%.
The investment is made. The tools are in place.
And still, 37% can link any effect on profit to AI. That is the same share as last year.
People feel the gains. 80% say AI has made them more productive. 50% say it helps them make better decisions. Those gains show up for individuals first. They reach the organisation's results much less often.
So the question I ask leaders is this. Is your organisation ready to get value from the AI you already have?
What else the 2026 findings show
Big organisations are moving faster with AI agents
AI agents are tools that can carry out steps on their own. 40% of organisations with more than $1 billion in revenue are now scaling them, up from 27%. Among smaller organisations it stayed at 22%.
Chatbots are still the most widely scaled tool. 47% are scaling them across the business.
AI costs are starting to bite
About one in five say AI running costs have limited how much they use it. Most still plan to spend more next year.
Some are building instead of buying
32% say their organisation decided against buying at least one software product because they could now build it themselves with AI coding tools.
People expect job cuts. Fewer have happened.
39% expect AI to reduce headcount in their organisation in the coming year. Last year it was 32%.
But in the past year, 14% saw AI contribute to a smaller workforce. That is less than half of what people expected a year ago. Two in three saw little or no change.
I find this one telling. The fear is growing faster than the change itself. And fear makes it much harder for people to speak openly about how their work could change.
What the top 6% do differently
McKinsey calls them AI high performers. They link 5% or more of their profit to AI and say they see significant value. They make up 6% of respondents.
They do spend more on AI. But McKinsey is clear that budget alone doesn't explain it.
They redesign the work. Nearly three in four high performers have fundamentally redesigned workflows because of AI. A year ago it was 55%. Among everyone else it is one in four. High performers build new workflows around AI. Others more often add AI to the steps they already have.
They aim for growth as well as savings. About 80% of both groups use AI for efficiency. The difference shows in growth. 74% of high performers use AI to grow revenue, against 47% of everyone else. 65% use it for innovation, against 49%.
Their leaders own it. High performers are twice as likely to say their senior leaders show real ownership of and commitment to AI. That means championing it over time, role modelling and staying involved.
They measure what AI delivers. They are also twice as likely to have a set process to measure the impact of their AI work.
They decide where a person stays in the loop. McKinsey lists human-in-the-loop design among the practices that set high performers apart. They have decided how and when a person checks what AI produces.
They think bigger. High performers are 3.3 times more likely to plan to use AI to fundamentally change their business in the next three years.
One line in the report stayed with me. McKinsey writes that the limiting factor is increasingly “the organization's ability to absorb change.”
What this means for you
The organisations getting value from AI have done the work around the tools.
They know why they use AI. They have redesigned how the work runs. They have decided where a person stays in the loop and how roles shift. Their leaders are involved.
That work depends on people.
When people can speak openly about how the work really runs, it becomes much easier to redesign it. When they worry about their jobs, they keep the workarounds to themselves.
A good first step is to see where your organisation stands today.
Check where you stand
I built a short assessment for this. It takes one minute. There is no sign-up, and you see your result straight away.
For more detail, the AI Change Readiness Assessment takes about six minutes. It shows the three areas to work on first.
Want to talk through your result? Email me.
Source
McKinsey, The State of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI, August 2026. Online survey of 1,719 participants in 97 countries, 4 May to 8 June 2026. “Effect on profit” means at least some EBIT impact attributed to AI. Agent, cost and workforce questions were asked of organisations that use AI.