The week in brief — using AI transforms nothing without redesigning the work

Three of this week's lessons point the same way. Deciding what you hand to the machine is a leadership call, not a technical setting; faced with an "agentic" vendor, demand proof of what the tool does without human sign-off; and while 88% of employees use AI, only 5% use it to transform how they work. The common thread: usage is not value — only redesigning the workflow creates it. Pick one process, redesign it end to end with the teams who live it, then add AI, in that order.

Source: McKinsey (QuantumBlack), "The state of AI," 2025; the Institute's weekly synthesis.