Redesigning How Software Gets Built With AI Agents — Sonar & McKinsey Panel
80-90% of companies use AI agents, but fewer than a third have scaled to real business results.
“the boundaries of traditional role definitions—who is a software engineer, a product manager, or a designer—started to blur.”
McKinsey research presented at AI Engineer World's Fair found a sharp adoption-to-scaling gap: while nearly all companies have piloted AI agents, less than one-third are seeing measurable business outcomes. The research identifies three scaling factors—workflow redesign, tooling, and the human factor—with organizational restructuring around blurring role boundaries being the most critical and most ignored. Companies that rebuilt their operating models around this shift are reportedly achieving tenfold productivity gains.