Topic
20 facts from 2 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
Undated
Chase Covington says 88% of organizations McKinsey talks to have launched AI or digital transformation efforts, but under 25% of those feel meaningful progress.
“88% of organizations we talk to have launched some sort of AI or digital transformation effort. Of that group, less than 25% really feel honestly that there's been meaningful progress.”
Undated
Chase Covington says 75% of organizations lack a comprehensive generative AI strategy or clear success measures.
“75% of organizations lack a comprehensive Gen AI strategy or clear success measures, leading to fragmented experimentation”
Undated
Chase Covington says firms often need about five dollars for adoption and workforce readiness for every dollar spent on technology.
“of every one dollar spent on technology, firms often need five for adoption, workforce readiness to ensure that the technology is used to its fullest”
Undated
Chase Covington describes a medical products company whose AI agents produced unacceptable research output because legal and clinical teams made siloed, misaligned decisions.
“because they had that poor governance and a siloed decision making related to the creation of those agents, the output was unacceptable.”
Undated
Chase Covington says McKinsey surveyed 40 global general partners and investment managers and analyzed operations across 200 investment teams to assess AI's impact in diligence.
“we surveyed forty global general partners, um, investment managers, analyze operations across 200 investment teams.”
Undated
Chase Covington says roughly 95% or more of surveyed investors expect transformational AI impact within five years, though only a handful report it now.
“almost everyone, ninety six plus, ninety five plus, expect transformational impact within the next five years.”
Undated
Chase Covington says enterprise licenses for large language models are inexpensive and widely available, so differentiation comes from proprietary data.
“anybody can get a LLM enterprise licensed, and they're not very expensive, and there's many to choose from”
Undated
Chase Covington says McKinsey records, logs and catalogs many of its expert interviews so they can feed its gen AI tools.
“I don't think any firm does as many expert interviews as we do. Many of those we record, log and catalog”
Undated
Chase Covington says AI is compressing staffing pyramids in repetitive, rule-based businesses such as tech services and IT outsourcing, more than at investors.
“Often the work is more repetitive and rule-based. We are seeing a much higher degree of compression of those pyramids.”
Undated
Chase Covington recalls that analysts used to spend five to six days digesting a data room, which gen AI can now summarize in minutes.
“you got a data room on Friday afternoon, you then spent the next five, six days trying to digest everything in there.”
Undated
Chase Covington said agentifying a transformation office lowers the staffing needed to set one up, making it accessible to more companies.
“It makes it more accessible to more companies because the human resource load required to stand up an effective transformation office is lower.”
Undated
Chase Covington said agentic tools let a transformation office reach more employees, and that McKinsey research shows embedding change more granularly raises the odds of success.
“What I think is more interesting is in any company that's using a TO, your TO can reach more employees.”
Undated
Chase Covington described 'cognitive surrender' as letting an AI chatbot do one's job, and said he saw it among junior colleagues and clients.
“the technical term is cognitive surrender, which is a really scary way of saying you just let the AI chatbot do your job.”
Undated
Chase Covington said the agentic approach applies to transformations, turnarounds, merger integrations, divestitures and carve-outs.
“Whether it's a transformation, whether it's a turnaround, whether it's a merger integration, whether it's a divestiture, a carve out”
Undated
Chase Covington advised that transformation offices should not use AI bots to communicate with the business, because the office's role is human-to-human change.
“Don't use your AI bots to talk to the business. That sucks.”
Undated
Chase Covington counsels clients to aim for same-length decks with sharper insight rather than longer decks produced with AI.
“When I counsel clients on it, I use a same length deck, sharper insight, so use the tool to get to that.”
Undated
Chase Covington said transformation offices, PMOs and integration offices are generally small and should stay that way.
“TOs, PMOs, IOs and IMO are generally pretty small and should be. They shouldn't be cottage industries.”
Undated
Chase Covington said consistency audits are where the most junior transformation office staff spend most of their time.
“The consistency audit's a big one. This is where the most junior people on the TO spend the most of their time.”
Undated
Chase Covington said most transformation office work can be done by open-source AI models, and that failures come from workflow customization, not model choice.
“The vast majority of the stuff we observe in a transformation office can be done by open source models, and open source model's getting quite good.”
Undated
Chase Covington said that agentifying a transformation office has not eliminated the need for junior people; instead their jobs change toward more coaching.
“Oh man, does this mean we no longer need all these junior people? We get rid of all these? No, that's not the case. That's not what we observe.”
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