Rewired: Outcompeting in the Age of Digital, AI, and GenAI
This means rewiring a company’s DNA so that technology, particularly AI and GenAI, is embedded into every facet of its operations, from customer experiences to internal processes.
Rodney Zemmel, a Senior Partner at McKinsey and the global leader of McKinsey Digital, presents an inspiring and pragmatic vision in Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI, co-authored with Eric Lamarre and Kate Smaje.
This vision is not just about adopting cutting-edge technologies like digital, AI, and generative AI (GenAI), but about fundamentally transforming how businesses operate to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Zemmel’s perspective is rooted in the belief that competitive advantage in today’s world comes from building organizational capabilities that enable continuous innovation, value creation, and adaptability at scale.
Digital Transformation
At the heart of the Rewired vision is the idea of moving beyond superficial digital adoption—merely “doing digital”—to truly “being digital.”
This means rewiring a company’s DNA so that technology, particularly AI and GenAI, is embedded into every facet of its operations, from customer experiences to internal processes.
Zemmel emphasizes that success doesn’t hinge on a single “magic” use case but on orchestrating hundreds or thousands of technology-driven solutions that work together seamlessly. These solutions, when effectively implemented, enhance customer and employee experiences, reduce costs, and generate compounding value over time.
The vision is ambitious yet grounded in practicality. Zemmel and his co-authors argue that businesses must shift from isolated pilot projects—often leading to what he calls “death by a thousand pilots”—to a strategic, business-led approach. This involves creating a clear transformation roadmap that aligns technology initiatives with specific business goals, such as improving operational KPIs or driving revenue growth.
The Rewired framework outlines six critical capabilities: crafting a strategic roadmap, building a robust talent pool, adopting a new operating model, developing a distributed technology environment, embedding data ubiquitously, and scaling adoption across the enterprise. Together, these form a playbook for turning potential into tangible, sustainable outcomes.
Zemmel’s vision is particularly inspiring in its emphasis on people and culture alongside technology. He sees a future where business leaders become technology leaders, and where thousands of teams across an organization are empowered to innovate.
GenAI
This distributed innovation model envisions a company where tech isn’t confined to a central IT department but is a shared capability, enabling agility and responsiveness.
For instance, he highlights McKinsey’s own journey with Lilli, their GenAI platform, as a proof point—demonstrating how a rewired organization can leverage proprietary data and public knowledge to drive widespread adoption and impact.
In the context of GenAI, Zemmel sees it as an accelerant that amplifies the urgency and potential of this transformation. While acknowledging its disruptive power—capable of delivering trillions in economic value by boosting productivity and efficiency—he cautions against getting lost in hype.
The real challenge, and opportunity, lies in rewiring businesses to harness GenAI systematically, avoiding scattered efforts and focusing on scalable, high-impact applications.
Ultimately, Zemmel’s Rewired vision is about outcompeting through resilience and reinvention. It’s a call to action for leaders to embrace a journey of constant evolution, where digital and AI become not just tools, but the foundation of a business that can adapt, grow, and lead in an age defined by technological possibility. This isn’t a destination, but a mindset—a commitment to reimagining how value is created and sustained in a world where the pace of change is relentless.
