Preparing for Davos: the leadership, AI and resilience questions shaping 2026
Davos 2026 will be less about vision and more about readiness. Insights from a McKinsey preview webinar point to the structural gaps organisations can no longer ignore
As leaders head to World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the mood is less about bold declarations and more about operational reality. Insights from a recent McKinsey & Company webinar previewing the Davos 2026 program suggest that the WEF’s agenda reflects a world that is more contested, more fragmented, and more technologically accelerated than even a year ago – and where action is becoming the differentiator.
Across geopolitics, artificial intelligence, leadership and growth, there is a definitive throughline: organisations are being forced to mature faster, and often before they feel ready.
Agentic organisations on the rise
If recent years were defined by experimentation with generative AI, Davos 2026 signals a move toward agentic AI transformation – systems that plan, decide and act within organisational processes rather than simply supporting tasks.
The value at stake is significant. McKinsey estimates that around $2.9 trillion could be unlocked in the US alone if organisations rewire work around people, AI agents and robotics. Yet many remain stuck in pilot mode. Employees are often ready to use AI, while leadership struggles to measure impact, redesign roles, or move beyond experimentation.
For workplace leaders, this raises immediate questions around decision-making, accountability and trust as AI agents begin to operate across functions.
Leadership under perma-pressure
Alongside AI, leadership capacity is under strain. CEOs now face roughly double the number of critical issues compared to a decade ago, spanning technology, geopolitics, talent, sustainability and security.
In response, high-performing organisations are identifying high-potential talent earlier, simplifying decision-making, and removing low-value approvals. Leadership development is increasingly being treated as a CEO-level responsibility rather than an HR programme – with implications for flatter structures, clearer decision rights and faster learning cycles.
Planning for geopolitical uncertainty
Geopolitics has moved front and centre of the global conversation. Since 2017, US–China tariffs have risen sixfold, global trade interventions have increased 12-fold since 2010, and $2 trillion in subsidies has been introduced worldwide since 2020.
Many leadership teams are now planning for two parallel futures: one shaped by regionalisation and fragmentation, and another where trade remains open but rebalanced. Scenario planning is becoming a core capability, with direct consequences for workplace location strategies, talent mobility and long-term investment decisions.
Resilience as a growth capability
Despite years of disruption, only one in four organisations considers itself prepared for major shocks, and just 13% embed resilience KPIs into strategy. The next phase of resilience will be simulation-led and AI-enabled, with forward-looking scenarios and digital twins informing major decisions. Routine risk management will increasingly be automated, while human judgement is reserved for ambiguity and trade-offs.
The brain economy
Finally, Davos places growing emphasis on the brain economy – the idea that cognitive health, focus and emotional resilience are becoming core economic assets. McKinsey estimates that scaling proven brain-health interventions could generate $6.2 trillion in GDP gains by 2050, underscoring how closely productivity, performance and wellbeing are now intertwined.
As AI absorbs routine tasks and geopolitical uncertainty increases cognitive load, human attention, judgement and resilience are emerging as limiting factors in organisational performance. This shifts wellbeing from a cultural or benefits-led conversation to a strategic one.
What leaders should be asking before Davos
Davos 2026 is less about predicting what comes next and more about confronting gaps between ambition and readiness. Leaders should be asking whether they are redesigning work for AI agents or simply adding tools, whether leadership structures support speed and uncertainty, and whether resilience and cognitive performance are treated as strategic capabilities.
