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Only 5% of companies see AI boosting bottom line, McKinsey’s Joe Ngai tells Consensus

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Only 5% of companies see AI boosting bottom line, McKinsey’s Joe Ngai tells Consensus

Nearly every major company in the world is experimenting with artificial intelligence, but almost none are changing meaningfully as a result, McKinsey’s chairman of Greater China, Joe Ngai, told Consensus Hong Kong on Thursday.

Internal surveys show 98% of corporate executives report implementing some form of AI, Ngai said. But when asked how much of that is deployed at scale, “that number drops significantly” to less than 20%, he said. When it comes to measurable profit impact, it’s 5%.

The bottleneck, Ngai argued, isn’t technical capability, it’s organizational design.

Modern corporations, he said, are built on “layers of people, hierarchies, managers and reporting.” In an AI-native world, that structure becomes friction.

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Instead of reimagining business models, most firms are layering AI pilots onto legacy processes, seeking approvals, testing small use cases and protecting reporting lines.

“That is actually not where you get the most benefit out of AI,” Ngai said. “The bottleneck of AI implementation is actually people.”

From his vantage point in China, Ngai sees a different approach. Chinese companies have spent a decade digitizing operations around mobile and data. As a result, the “receptance … on agentic and AI is far greater,” with less resistance from labor structures and legacy governance.

Unlike Western discourse, which often centers on frontier models and artificial general intelligence, China’s focus is pragmatic: “There’s a lot less talk about the models … there’s a lot more talk around usage.”

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Ngai also highlighted embodied AI, such as robotics, automation and autonomous driving, as a major frontier. Given China’s supply chain scale, he predicts a coming “robot dividend,” arguing the country may soon deploy more robots than humans, offsetting demographic decline and reshaping industrial productivity.

Ngai described 2026 as defined by two opposing forces: geopolitical uncertainty and technological acceleration. CEOs are navigating tariffs and fragmentation on one hand, and AI-driven transformation on the other. Yet corporate earnings remain resilient.

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Crypto World

Fed’s Barr Calls for Balanced US Stablecoin Rules Under GENIUS Act

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Federal Reserve, Legislation, United States, Stablecoin, Genius Act

US Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr said Tuesday that clearer US stablecoin rules could speed the market’s growth, but warned that regulators still need to address money laundering risks, bank run risks and consumer safeguards as they implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

Speaking at a Federalist Society event on stablecoin regulation, Barr said the law provides “needed clarity” for issuers, but that “a great deal will depend on how federal and state regulators implement the statute.”

Barr said stablecoins are still used mainly for crypto trading and as a US dollar store of value in some foreign markets, though they could also lower remittance costs, speed up trade finance processing and help firms manage treasury operations. He also highlighted the risk of bad actors buying stablecoins in secondary markets without identity checks, and said issuers may be tempted to stretch for yield in reserve assets in ways that undermine confidence during stress.

Barr’s speech also cast the stablecoin debate in historical terms. He said private money has a “long and painful history” when safeguards are weak, pointing to the Free Banking Era in the US, the Panic of 1907, money market fund stress during the global financial crisis and COVID-19 shock, and more recent stablecoin valuation pressure as reasons to be cautious about any asset marketed as redeemable at par on demand.

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Barr’s remarks come as US agencies move from legislation to rule-writing. The US Treasury Department opened a second round of public comment on implementing the GENIUS Act in September 2025, saying the law must be translated into rules that both encourage innovation and address illicit finance, consumer protections and financial stability risks.

Federal Reserve, Legislation, United States, Stablecoin, Genius Act
Brief Remarks on Stablecoins. Source: Federal Reserve

Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman told lawmakers in February that banking regulators were already working on capital and liquidity rules for stablecoin issuers, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Travis Hill said in March that the agency does not expect stablecoins to receive deposit insurance under the law.

Related: Who gets the yield? CLARITY Act becomes fight over onchain dollars

Barr warns GENIUS Act rollout will test stablecoin safeguards

Barr’s speech signals where the implementation fights may land. He flagged reserve asset rules, regulatory arbitrage, the scope of issuer activities beyond issuance, capital and liquidity requirements, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks and consumer protection standards as the key issues still to be settled.

The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins in the United States. The law requires issuers to maintain one-to-one backing with reserve assets such as US dollars and Treasury bills, and is expected to take effect 18 months after signing or 120 days after final agency rules are completed.

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