As Global Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company, Bob Sternfels helps leaders and organizations navigate disruption and build resilience. At Oslo Business Forum, he shared a message that felt both urgent and grounding: in an unpredictable world, clarity is the new competitive advantage.

Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s Global Managing Partner, laid the groundwork for this shift months earlier:
“We are rethinking our center-based operations by leveraging all of this new technology.
We will probably have fewer folks in non-client-deployed areas going forward.”

This statement is more than a workforce update.
It is a leadership signal.

“This is a captain announcing a course correction before the waves make it unavoidable.”

McKinsey is openly acknowledging what many organizations are still reluctant to say out loud:
AI is no longer an efficiency add-on—it is redefining how value is created inside the firm.
What Makes This Expert View Critical
Most companies talk about AI as: A productivity booster A cost reducer A technology upgrade

McKinsey frames it differently.

By explicitly separating:

Client-deployed roles (growing)
Center-based, non-client-facing roles (shrinking)

the firm is making a strategic distinction: Human value scales through judgment, trust, and relationships—not through repetition.

“AI has taken over the backstage. Humans are still on stage—but with a new script.”

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When McKinsey Cuts Jobs, It’s Not About Costs — It’s About the Future of Leadership

This isn’t about dropping weight in a storm—it’s about changing direction.

McKinsey isn’t shedding excess. It’s resetting the compass.

When the world’s smartest advisors restructure themselves, every leader should pay attention.

McKinsey & Company—one of the world’s most influential management consultancies—is preparing to cut thousands of roles over the next 18 to 24 months, primarily in non-client-facing functions. The reason cited is not new to its clients: rapid advances in artificial intelligence and the need to improve operational efficiency.

But this is not just another layoff story.

When the firm that has advised CEOs for decades on productivity, cost optimization, and organizational design begins applying the same logic to itself, the message is far deeper—and far more uncomfortable—than headlines suggest.

This Is Not a Cost-Cutting Story. It’s a Structural Shift.

They’re not repainting the building; they’re moving the load-bearing columns.

What looks incremental is actually foundational.

Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s Global Managing Partner, signaled this shift months earlier, noting that the firm would rethink its operations by “leveraging all of this new technology” and would likely have “fewer folks in non-client-deployed areas” going forward.

This was not a tactical remark.
It was a leadership signal.

This is a captain announcing a course correction before the waves force it.

McKinsey’s planned reductions—up to 10% in some support teams—signal a fundamental truth of the AI era:

Artificial intelligence is no longer a tool at the edge of organizations. It is reshaping their core.

What’s being reduced is not “talent” in the abstract, but a category of work—repeatable, process-heavy, back-office roles that AI can now perform faster, cheaper, and at scale.

At the same time, McKinsey is actively hiring more client-facing professionals, reinforcing a critical distinction:

• Execution and analysis are increasingly automated

• Judgment, trust, and relationship-based leadership remain human

This is not downsizing.
It is reallocation of value creation.

The Detail Most Leaders Shouldn’t Ignore

The engine is running, but the speedometer isn’t moving.

Efficiency exists—acceleration does not.

McKinsey’s revenue has hovered around $15–16 billion for nearly five years.

Despite AI-driven efficiency gains, the firm—like many professional services organizations—has not yet unlocked a new growth curve. This explains why AI is currently being used defensively:

• To protect margins

• To streamline operations

• To sustain profitability during demand slowdowns

In other words, AI is first showing up as a cost lever, not yet as a growth engine.

This matters because many organizations are making the same move—cutting roles without redefining value.

Client-Facing Work Is Not “Safe”—It’s Being Redefined

The stage remains, but the role has been rewritten.

The spotlight stays human. The script changes.

Of the 187 customer service and support leaders Gartner surveyed in July and August 2024, 11 percent were piloting the technology, while five percent were already leveraging it.

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McKinsey’s approach highlights a broader leadership reality:

Jobs are not disappearing.
Roles are being re-authored.

Client-facing professionals are not immune to AI. Their work is being elevated:

• Less time on preparation and synthesis

• More time on decision framing

• More responsibility for sensemaking, judgment, and trust-building

The winners in this transition will not be the most analytical leaders—but the most integrative ones.

The Leadership Risk Nobody Talks About

Upgrading the brakes while letting go of the steering wheel.

Control without direction creates silent failure.

Layoffs driven by AI create two very different futures:

Scenario 1: Efficiency-Only Leadership

• AI replaces people

• Work intensity increases

• Culture becomes cautious and transactional

• Innovation slows under psychological pressure

Scenario 2: Capacity-Building Leadership

• AI removes cognitive overload

• Humans move toward higher-impact work

• Leaders redesign roles, not just headcount

• Organizations gain energy, not just efficiency

McKinsey’s decision will be judged not by how many roles it cuts—but by whether it translates efficiency into strategic capacity.

What This Means for CEOs and Founders

The question is no longer how many instruments you have—but who conducts the orchestra.

AI plays. Leadership conducts.

Every executive reading this should pause and ask one question:

Are we using AI to reduce people—or to increase the quality of leadership?

Because the organizations that win in the next decade will not be the leanest.
They will be the ones that best orchestrate human judgment and machine intelligence.

AI can scale analysis.
It cannot scale trust.
It cannot scale meaning.
It cannot scale leadership.

AI is fire—it can warm the organization or burn it down. Leadership builds the hearth.

Technology supplies power. Leadership gives it purpose.

McKinsey is doing what many organizations will be forced to do.
But its real test—and yours—is still ahead.

AI creates capacity.
Leadership decides what that capacity becomes.

The real question for CEOs isn’t

“How many roles can AI replace?”

It’s
“How do we redeploy our people toward higher-value leadership work?”

Because in the AI era, efficiency is table stakes.
Leadership is the advantage.

This week, identify one role in your organization that exists mainly to manage processes—
and redesign it into a role that creates judgment, trust, or strategic insight.
Don’t ask what AI can replace.
Ask where human leadership should be redeployed.

Sources

• The Times, “McKinsey to Make Thousands of Layoffs as AI Advances”

• Bloomberg, reporting on McKinsey workforce restructuring and AI-driven efficiency initiatives