Special episode: 2026 Davos highlights

This is the McKinsey Podcast, where we help you make sense out of our world's toughest business challenges. Welcome to the show. I'm Lucia Rahili and I'm Roberta Fassaro. Hey folks, this is a special bonus episode of the McKinsey Podcast. We're going to cover highlights from last week's meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos.

McKinsey leaders Becca Coggins and Shelley Stewart III were on the ground and share what was top of mind for CEOs, including geopolitics, leading through the AI moment, and the arrival of humanoid robots at scale much sooner than many of us expected. Thanks for being together with us, especially at such a busy time. Thank you, Lucia. It's good to be on with you as always. Thanks, Lucia.

So this year's Davos was the biggest yet, largest gathering in the 55-year history of the event. Tons of buzz, obviously, on geopolitics. So let's start there. rising tensions between world powers were on display, obviously with leaders highlighting risks to global stability, to traditional alliances, to economic cooperation and so forth. Shelly, let's start with you.

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