Bret Taylor (OpenAI/Sierra) on democratized superintelligence and the future of AI agents

By McKinsey & Company · September 25, 2026.

This email announces a new episode of The McKinsey Podcast titled "Democratized superintelligence is coming: The world needs to get ready", focused on the question of what happens when AI agents can reason through problems well enough to complete real work autonomously.

The guest is Bret Taylor, chair of OpenAI and cofounder of Sierra, a company that helps some of the world's largest businesses (including about 40% of the Fortune 50) build sophisticated AI agents. Taylor speaks with Eric Kutcher, McKinsey senior partner and North America chair, as part of a recurring podcast series in which Kutcher interviews senior executives about the practice of leadership.

According to the episode description, the conversation covers three main themes. The first is the areas where AI is already transforming customer service, sales and software engineering. The second is why Taylor believes open-weight models will always have a place in the ecosystem despite the cost advantage held by frontier labs. The third is why he argues that the massive build-out of data centers in the United States is a bet the country needs to make, even though it carries real financial risk.

The email offers no further substantive content from the episode (no direct quotes, additional figures or specific details beyond those mentioned). It serves mainly as a promotion to listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube, where McKinsey says it will now release new episodes weekly. It also lists other podcast titles as "recent episodes" (corporate transformations, US manufacturing, consumer trust in AI advice) as additional listening suggestions.