Only 5% of companies see AI improving profit, McKinsey’s Joe Ngai tells Consensus
McKinsey's Joe Ngai stated that while 98% of companies experiment with AI, only 5% see measurable profit improvement due to organizational bottlenecks.Summary
Joe Ngai, McKinsey's chairman of Greater China, told Consensus Hong Kong that although nearly all major companies are experimenting with Artificial Intelligence, very few are realizing significant profit gains. Internal surveys show 98% of executives are implementing some form of AI, but deployment at scale drops below 20%, with only 5% seeing a measurable profit impact.
Ngai identified the primary bottleneck as organizational design, arguing that traditional hierarchical structures create friction against an AI-native world. Most firms simply layer AI pilots onto legacy processes instead of fundamentally reimagining business models.
He noted that Chinese companies, having spent a decade digitizing around mobile and data, show greater acceptance of agentic AI due to fewer structural resistances. Furthermore, he highlighted embodied AI, like robotics, as a major frontier, predicting a coming "robot dividend" in China that could offset demographic decline through increased industrial productivity.
(Source：CoinDesk)