16 AI Prompts to Help Bridge the AI Value Gap (McKinsey AI Survey - November 2025)
A new McKinsey 2025 AI survey finds 88% of companies use AI, but only 6% are ‘high performers’ seeing real profit. Learn the secrets to scaling AI, redesigning workflows, and driving real value.
You use AI every day. But if you look at your bottom line, can you prove it’s making a difference? This is the core tension for countless entrepreneurs and businesses today. If you feel caught between the daily hype and the numbers on your P&L statement, you’re not alone.
A new McKinsey Global Survey, The State of AI in 2025, confirms this feeling is widespread. While 88% of organizations in this survey now use AI, most have not seen a meaningful impact on their profits. They are experimenting and piloting, but not capturing significant value.
The survey, however, identifies an elite group of “AI high performers,” just 6% of companies, who are playing a completely different game. Their secret seems to be a completely different mindset and playbook.
What the High Performers Do Differently
The “solution” isn’t a secret new tool. The survey isolates a small, elite group of “AI high performers” (about 6% of companies) who are seeing significant profit impact.
Their secret? It’s not a single piece of tech; it’s a completely different playbook.
They aim higher: They are 3.6 times more likely to use AI for transformative change, not just incremental tweaks.
They focus on growth: While 80% of all companies use AI for efficiency, high performers are far more likely to also target growth (80%) and innovation (79%).
Leadership is committed: Their senior leaders are three times more likely to demonstrate strong, public ownership and commitment to AI initiatives.
They do the hard work: They are nearly three times as likely to fundamentally redesign their workflows around AI. They don’t just add AI to an old process; they build new, better processes with AI at the core.
Using AI to Think Through the Gap
This is the hard part. The gap between “piloting” and “value” isn’t closed by a single person, it’s closed by leadership commitment, strategic alignment, and that hard work of workflow redesign.
You cannot “prompt” your way to transformation.
But you can use AI as a thinking partner to challenge your own assumptions and frame these complex conversations with your team.
These prompts aren’t magic bullets. They are strategic conversation starters, designed to help you do the human-led work of building a real strategy.
Prompts Table of Contents
Core Strategic Prompts (1–6)
These prompts target the highest-impact behaviors required for enterprise-level transformation, leadership alignment, and workflow redesign.
The Transformation-vs-Efficiency Audit
The AI-Native Workflow Redesign
The Growth & Innovation Brainstorm
The Leadership Role-Modeling Plan
The Strategic Investment Business Case
The Hybrid Intelligence Governance Plan
10 Bonus Prompts: From Strategic Thinking to Daily Action (Macro to Micro)
These supplemental prompts help scale AI thinking across leadership functions and integrate AI into specific functional tasks.
5 Macro Prompts (For Leaders & Strategists)
Workforce Scenario Planning
Risk Mitigation Dashboard
The ‘AI Agent’ Opportunity Map
The Leadership Commitment Action Plan
Digital Budget Re-allocation
5 Micro Prompts (For Daily Tasks)
For Marketing
For Software Engineers
For Knowledge Management
For HR
For Strategy & Finance
1. The Transformation-vs-Efficiency Audit
