3 forces reshaping organizations in 2026: McKinsey

McKinsey’s “State of Organizations 2026” report highlights several disruptions affecting organizations globally, including challenges hospital and health system leaders are grappling with.

The report is based on survey responses collected from June to September from more than 10,000 senior executives across 15 countries and 17 industries. More than 3,000 respondents were from U.S.-based organizations, and healthcare systems and services accounted for 531 respondents.

The report builds on McKinsey’s first edition published in 2023. While leaders remain focused on driving performance, the emphasis is shifting from short-term resilience to long-term productivity and organizational change.

Here are three forces reshaping organizations in 2026, according to the report:

1. Technology infusion: Survey responses pointed to three forces reshaping organizations, the first being the infusion of technology. This includes artificial intelligence, automation and data analytics, which are driving organizations to rethink traditional structures. McKinsey said these technologies could produce several benefits together — including cost reductions and productivity gains — and suggested organizations seize emerging opportunities and “test, test, test.”

Across many hospitals and health systems, AI is moving past the pilot era and transitioning into becoming ingrained with clinical and operational workflows. The era of one-off AI tools is also ending, health system leaders have told Becker’s.

“We’ll move from point solutions that solve individual problems to platforms that support many use cases,” Terri Couts, chief digital officer at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare said in December. “Right now, you might have one vendor for coding help, another for ambient documentation, another for referrals or denials management. That’s not sustainable.”

2. Economic and geopolitical disruption: The second force is intensifying economic disruption and geopolitical uncertainty, prompting organizations to adapt swiftly and sustainably.

The heightened challenges have also been reflected in several hospitals closing, ending services or cutting jobs in 2026.

3. Workforce transformation: The third force is workforce transformation, driven by evolving employee expectations, demographics shifts and tech-driven working models. Organizations should move beyond traditional structures, redefine leadership and center their focus on performance to navigate disruption, according to the authors.

As the U.S. population ages and new employees entering the workforce articulate their expectations for employers, hospitals and health systems are doubling down on recruitment and retention, including through educational partnerships and compensation increases.

The three forces will play out across the following nine themes, according to McKinsey. Read the full report here.

Technology disruption

• Unlocking the AI-enabled organization: Organizations should aim for a technical and organizational transformation that includes reimagining how work is done across workflows and functions.
• Humans and AI agents: McKinsey suggests AI agents and employees should collaborate, prompting organizations to build human engagement with the technology and redefine capability requirements. 
• Leveraging AI to rewrite the future of shared services.

Economic disruption

• Finding value in a new geopolitical context through the development of resilient and flexible structures.
• Reaching the next productivity frontier by shifting attention away from structure and toward how work gets done, cutting redundancies and streamlining decision routines.
• Focusing on the core so organizations can identify the performance moves that have the greatest effects, selecting a few areas to excel and build capabilities while allocating budget and talent to drive them.

Workforce shifts

• Aiming higher with a new performance edge: Improvement requires a focus on organizational capital, such as culture, employee health and well-being investments and management practices.
• Sharpening the focus on diversity and inclusion.
• Leadership reinvented: Leaders must focus on personal growth and reflect on the “why” to inspire meaningful change, according to McKinsey.

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