Welcome executives and professionals. The highest-performing companies treat AI as a catalyst to transform their organizations, redesigning workflows and accelerating innovation.

Since the previous edition, we have reviewed hundreds of the latest insights in agentic and generative AI, spanning best practices, case studies, market dynamics, and innovations.

This briefing outlines what is driving material value — and why it’s important.

In today’s briefing:

• McKinsey: The state of AI in 2025.

• BCG’s AI-first sector-level playbooks.

• How to secure AI in the enterprise.

• Bain: ERP agentic AI transformation.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

MARKET INSIGHT

McKinsey: The state of AI in 2025

Brief: McKinsey’s State of AI in 2025 surveyed 1,993 respondents across 105 countries. Eighty-eight percent now use AI in at least one business function, up from 78% last year, with many exploring AI agents.

Breakdown:

• Nearly two-thirds of firms remain in the AI experimentation (32%) or piloting (30%) stages, while only 31% report scaling AI enterprise-wide.

• Most respondents say less than 5% of EBIT comes from AI, but 56% have seen cost reductions in software engineering and manufacturing this year.

• Sixty-two percent of organizations are at least experimenting with AI agents, yet fewer than one in ten report deploying them at scale.

• Perceptions of workforce impact differ: 32% expect reductions, 43% predict no change, and 13% anticipate headcount growth within a year.

• High-performing firms employ best practices like structured Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) validation and rewiring processes (image above).

Why it’s important: AI use is now common, but most organizations remain in transition from experimentation to scaled deployment. McKinsey’s findings reveal that while they may be capturing value in some parts of the organization, they’re not yet realizing enterprise-wide financial impact.

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

BCG’s AI-first sector-level playbooks

Brief: BCG released new sector-level playbooks on AI agents transforming retail banking and E2E AI transformation in MedTech, expanding its series of AI-first playbooks for executives across consumer, automotive, and oil and gas.

Breakdown:

• AI agents promise to be the foundation of an AI-first retail bank, with AI profit pools exceeding $370B annually by 2030 (28 pages).

• AI-first MedTech firms can reinvent value chains, with potential to raise revenues by 10% and productivity by 50% (29 slides).

• Roughly 20% of consumer decisions are already shaped by LLMs. Embedding AI helps firms become faster and more resilient (25 slides).

• AI-first automotive leaders will redefine the car-buying journey. Early movers could see 20% revenue upside (22 slides).

• In oil and gas, AI-first firms will dramatically transform hydrocarbon sales (31-slides) while AI-first airlines win the future (25-slides).

Why it’s important: With most sectors undergoing major shifts, CEOs are focused on leveraging AI to create sources of competitive advantage. BCG’s series answers executive questions like what does an AI-first enterprise look like in my sector, how do I get started, and how do I get it right?

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

How to secure AI in the enterprise

Brief: Darktrace, a leader in AI cybersecurity, released a 15-page vendor-neutral guide defining the cybersecurity scope of AI, outlining key categories, risks, and security functions organizations should assess as they adopt AI.

Breakdown:

• The guide presents five categories that form distinct layers of protection across the AI lifecycle, each with related risks and safeguards.

• Layers cover defending against misuse, monitoring AI behavior, protecting AI development, securing supply chains, and improving oversight.

• Among the 21 mapped capabilities is Shadow AI, when employees use unapproved AI tools operating outside formal security controls.

• Shadow AI risks, such as data exposure via unsanctioned tools, are tied to safeguards like detecting and blocking non-approved AI services.

• The paper guides leaders in translating AI security complexity into clear executive actions centered on trust, accountability, and resilience.

Why it’s important: Many executives still lack a concise definition of what “securing AI” encompasses. Few resources cohesively align risks with safeguards. Broader standards like ISO/IEC 42001 set governance principles but lack practical guidance to operationalize enterprise AI security.

OPPORTUNITY INSIGHT

Bain: ERP agentic AI transformation

Brief: Bain explored how agentic AI could transform ERP platforms and deliver new enterprise value, yet many organizations remain in pilot mode, constrained by skill shortages and limited measurable impact.

Breakdown:

• Despite decades of investment, most ERP transformations still fail to deliver the process efficiencies and business intelligence expected.

• Early generative AI use cases automate ERP migrations via testing, code remediation, and documentation, but that’s only the start.

• Agentic AI enables “touchless” ERP operations where employees work directly with AI agents, removing reliance on rigid user interfaces.

• Finance and planning areas like procure-to-pay, record-to-report, and forecast-to-plan show the greatest potential for agentic AI.

• To scale pilots, enterprises should answer four interlinked questions, including what’s required and whether to build, buy, or partner.

Why it’s important: Bain found 78% of IT leaders expect agentic AI to replace or augment ERP functions within three years. Yet only 6% would recommend their systems integrator for upgrades. This contrast signals an urgent need for the right expertise to successfully drive agentic AI transformation.

Allianz published a 30-page paper on the global data center construction boom, whether it will last, its emerging clusters, risks and challenges.

AWS outlined how Thomson Reuters’ Open Arena supports no-code creation of thousands of AI solutions, achieving ~70% adoption and 19K active users.

BCG shared insights on marketing AI transformation and how the real opportunity lies in AI's ability to help CMOs reinvent entire operating models.

Deloitte explored the evolving conversational design landscape and published 63 slides on the impact of global AI regulations on life sciences firms.

WRITER released a 76-page playbook on The Agentic Compact, covering safety, transparency, explainability, observability, and workforce enablement.

McKinsey shared insights on unlocking AI’s value in software development by redefining roles, and turning AI’s potential into business impact.

Salesforce released a 19-page playbook designed to help sell Agentforce to businesses, with best practices and content to run successful campaigns.

IBM explored if the biggest user of stablecoins will be agentic AI, shadow AI in the context of US workforce AI adoption, and RPA vs. agentic AI.

OpenAI now has 1M+ business customers, the fastest-growing business platform ever, with ChatGPT for Enterprise seats growing 9x year-over-year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said China is “nanoseconds behind America in AI” and that the West, including the US and UK, “needs more optimism.”

Anthropic projects $70B in revenue by 2028, up from $5B today. Cognizant is now a top-three customer, soon deploying Claude to 350,000 employees.

Moonshot AI, backed by Alibaba, released Kimi K2 Thinking, an open-source reasoning model outperforming GPT-5 on select benchmarks at lower cost.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman launched the MAI Superintelligence Team to build advanced AI for medicine, energy, and other areas.

Google’s 4x faster Ironwood TPU AI chips will be available in the coming weeks, with Anthropic already committing 1M chips for Claude.

Perplexity accused Amazon of “bullying” after a legal demand to block Comet AI assistant purchases, calling it a “threat to user choice.”

Stability AI won a UK High Court case against Getty Images over AI training trademark claims, with Getty expressing challenges in protecting works.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Anthropic - Head of Product

Cognizant - AI Vice President

Philips - Responsible AI Lead

EVENTS

ISG - AI Impact Summit - November 17-18, 2025

Microsoft - AI Agents Summit - November 26-27, 2025

AWS - re:Invent - December 1-5, 2025

Originally conceived as a practical communication for executives the editor, Lewis Walker, has worked with, this briefing now serves as a trusted resource for thousands of senior decision-makers shaping the future of enterprise AI.

If your AI product or service adds value to this audience, contact us for information on a limited number of sponsorship opportunities.

We also welcome feedback as we continue to refine the briefing.