I walked into a session at Bullhorn Engage expecting another version of the conversation we have all grown tired of, the one where AI quietly replaces everyone. What I heard instead, from two McKinsey leaders with decades of data behind them, was the opposite case. AI is not coming for your people. It is coming for the way your people work. For anyone running a hotel or a portfolio of them, that distinction changes everything.
The presenters were Anu Madgavkar, Partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, and her McKinsey & Company colleague Elizabeth Skovira. This was not opinion dressed up as research. McKinsey and the McKinsey Global Institute have spent 35 or more years on global economic research, analyzing 2,000 plus work activities across 800 plus occupations in more than 25 countries. When a firm with that foundation tells you how work is changing, it is worth your attention.
Anu Madgavkar, McKinsey Global Institute, and Elizabeth Skovira, McKinsey & Company, at Bullhorn Engage Boston 2026.
Here was the line that reframed the room. People, agents, and robots will form the workforce of the future, all powered by AI. Looking at 2024 US work hours, McKinsey found that roughly 43 percent of work is not automatable at all, work that leans heavily on social and emotional capability. Another 44 percent could be supported by AI agents handling non-physical tasks, and only about 13 percent sits with robots performing physical work. Sit with that first number. Nearly half of what gets done still depends on human judgment and human connection.
Share of 2024 US work hours by automation potential. Source: McKinsey Global Institute.
If you operate hotels, that is not an abstract statistic. That is your business. Guest experience, reading a room, recovering a service failure, leading a team through a tough night, these are precisely the social and emotional capabilities the data says cannot be automated. AI will absorb the repeatable work. It will not absorb the moments that make a guest come back.
The more practical takeaway came from what separates the organizations winning with AI from everyone else. McKinsey laid out five patterns, and they are not about technology.
The leaders set bold aspirations. About 50 percent of high performers are using AI to drive transformative change in their business, against just 14 percent of everyone else, roughly four times the ambition. They redesign workflows end to end rather than bolting AI onto old processes. Fifty-five percent of high performers reported a fundamental workflow redesign after deploying AI, compared to 20 percent of others. They treat AI as a leadership mandate, not an IT project. Forty-eight percent of high performers strongly agree that senior leaders must own it directly, three times the rate of the rest. They build for scale instead of running endless pilots, while 62 percent of organizations that have not yet scaled are still stuck in experimentation.
Intent to transform the business with AI, high performers versus all others. Source: McKinsey & Company, Rewired (2nd ed.), 2026.
Then came the point I have not stopped thinking about. Every AI transformation is, at its heart, a people transformation. And here is the gap that should get every operator’s attention. Only 54 percent of high performers have built a clear workforce plan that accounts for how AI changes their roles. Among everyone else, it is 19 percent. The organizations seeing real results are not the ones with the best software. They are the ones who planned for their people first.
Respondents with a clear workforce plan for AI-driven role change. Source: McKinsey & Company, Rewired (2nd ed.), 2026.
That gap is the opportunity. Most companies are still early. McKinsey’s maturity data put 53 percent of organizations in the emerging stage and another 6 percent still experimenting. Only 6 percent qualify as true AI leaders. The field is wide open, and the deciding factor is not the tools. It is talent, operating model, and the discipline to plan.
So here is my read for hospitality. The properties that win the next few years will not be the ones that buy the most technology. They will be the ones that pair it with the right people and a real workforce strategy. As AI takes over the repeatable tasks, the premium shifts to judgment, leadership, and guest connection, the work experienced hospitality professionals do better than anyone.
This is exactly why flexible talent is a strategic lever, not a line item to cut. When you are navigating an ownership transition, a brand conversion, a renovation, or a leadership gap, the ability to place proven, AI-ready talent quickly is how you protect the guest experience while the rest of the operation adapts. Task force and interim leadership are not the expensive emergency option. They are how disciplined operators stay covered, stay sharp, and stay competitive through change.
AI is rewriting the workflow. It is not rewriting the value of great people. The operators who understand that, and who plan for it, will be the ones still setting the standard when the dust settles.
If you are rethinking how your teams will work in an AI-driven market, that is a conversation worth having. It is the one we have every day.
Source: Presentation by Anu Madgavkar, Partner, McKinsey Global Institute, and Elizabeth Skovira, Partner, McKinsey & Company, “Agents, robots and us: Rewiring to outcompete with AI,” Bullhorn Engage Boston 2026. Figures from McKinsey & Company and the McKinsey Global Institute, including the McKinsey Global Survey on AI and Rewired (2nd ed.), McKinsey & Company, 2026.
