As AI accelerates change across economies and workplaces, much of the focus has been on the technology itself. But new research from the McKinsey Health Institute and the World Economic Forum suggests that an equally important'and often overlooked'source of value lies closer to home: our brains. The concept of the brain economy reflects a shift in how value is understood. Increasingly, economic growth depends not only on physical capital or digital infrastructure but also on brain health and brain skills: our ability to think clearly, adapt to change, collaborate effectively, and make sound judgments in complex environments. In this video Explainer, McKinsey's Erica Coe, Jacqueline Brassey, Kana Enomoto, and Lucy Perez explore what the brain economy is, why pressure on our brains is rising, how AI is raising the bar for human capability, and why investing in brain capital has become a clarion call for leaders, businesses, and societies. Lucy Perez: The brain economy is really about one thing. Strong brains power strong economies. And so, increasingly, we're seeing that value creation comes from what we can imagine, design, connect with our brains versus what we make with our hands....

As AI accelerates change across economies and workplaces, much of the focus has been on the technology itself. But new research from the McKinsey Health Institute and the World Economic Forum suggests that an equally important'and often overlooked'source of value lies closer to home: our brains. The concept of the brain economy reflects a shift in how value is understood. Increasingly, economic growth depends not only on physical capital or digital infrastructure but also on brain health and brain skills: our ability to think clearly, adapt to change, collaborate effectively, and make sound judgments in complex environments. In this video Explainer, McKinsey's Erica Coe, Jacqueline Brassey, Kana Enomoto, and Lucy Perez explore what the brain economy is, why pressure on our brains is rising, how AI is raising the bar for human capability, and why investing in brain capital has become a clarion call for leaders, businesses, and societies. Lucy Perez: The brain economy is really about one thing. Strong brains power strong economies. And so, increasingly, we're seeing that value creation comes from what we can imagine, design, connect with our brains versus what we make with our hands....

Commodity trading reached new heights in 2022 and 2023. Record volatility, shifts in global trade routes, and significant changes to counterparty creditworthiness all contributed to a dramatic increase in industry margins. The result' Commodity traders saw more than $100 billion EBIT in 2023.1Joscha Schabram and Roland Rechtsteiner, 'How to capture the next S-curve in commodity trading,' McKinsey, February 23, 2025. Not everyone thrived in these years. Many factors likely contributed to how players performed, such as risk appetite and access to capital. But the majority of those that banked record profits excelled in one critical area: balancing the classic risk triangle of market, credit, and liquidity risks, as well as working capital (see sidebar, 'Understanding the commodity trading market'). Instead of viewing each of these scarce resources in isolation, they monitored and steered them jointly'the same way they manage their P&L and other performance metrics. This allowed them to understand how deep their pockets were, what risks they could take, and when they needed to exit the market....

AI has yet to deliver the ROI many leaders expected. What are they getting wrong' 'This is probably the biggest, most complex transformation we've seen'but it's 80 percent business transformation and 20 percent tech transformation,' according to McKinsey's North America Chair Eric Kutcher. 'That's different from how most people have thought about it.' On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, Eric speaks with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about how CEOs can deliver on AI's revolutionary potential'and meet this 'legacy moment' successfully. Eric Kutcher: I tell everyone that this is the most exciting moment in my 28-year career. I call it the reimagine moment, the CEO legacy moment. As one CEO I really admire said to me, 'This is the real Fourth Industrial Revolution.' Watching your kids adopt this, watching your grandparents adopt this, watching everyone have an LLM [large language model] at their fingertips'it's amazing. My wife doesn't go to a travel agent anymore. She just asks, 'What does Chat say'' Or my son, when he was a senior in the early innings of this technology, two years ago'he prepared for exams by taking every problem set he'd done and every test he'd been given, throwing it into Chat, and saying, 'Make me a 90-minute exam, and then show me the answer key.'...