AppliedAI and McKinsey & Company announced a collaboration to help regulated enterprises transform mid and back-office operations using agentic AI. The partnership combines McKinsey’s transformation and change management expertise, including its QuantumBlack division, with AppliedAI’s Opus platform, an Agentic Process Execution (APX) system designed to build, run, optimize, and govern AI-powered enterprise workflows.
The companies said the collaboration is focused on helping regulated industries accelerate the deployment of governed and auditable AI workflows that can withstand regulatory scrutiny. According to McKinsey research cited in the announcement, 62% of organizations are experimenting with AI agents, but only 23% have scaled an agentic system within their enterprise environments.
AppliedAI said Opus is model-agnostic and can orchestrate workflows across existing enterprise systems while enabling business stakeholders to own and evolve workflows without relying solely on technical teams. McKinsey will lead workflow identification, process redesign, governance implementation, and operating model changes, while AppliedAI will provide the platform infrastructure for deployment and continuous optimization.
The companies highlighted a joint deployment with a leading European chemicals manufacturer operating under strict regulatory requirements. According to the announcement, the deployment transformed a vendor onboarding process that had previously relied on fragmented systems and manual follow-ups.
The collaboration delivered a more than 99% reduction in manual processing effort and reduced cycle time from approximately two weeks to under five minutes of active processing. The companies also said the deployment improved data accuracy, compliance posture, and real-time visibility into the onboarding process.
AppliedAI said the partnership is intended to scale similar workflow transformations across industries where operational friction creates significant cost and compliance burdens.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our collaboration with AppliedAI addresses the need for an agentic solution for mid and back-office workflows. It also introduces new tools that support the enterprise AI roadmap, rapidly uncovers business requirements and re-imagines workflows that accelerates our AI efforts. This gives clients a governed, auditable path from transformation strategy to operational workflow in weeks not months.”
Ben Ellencweig, Global Lead for QuantumBlack Partnerships and Alliances, McKinsey & Company
“Enterprises spend trillions globally on work that is necessary but procedural. We built Opus from first principles for the agentic enterprise, turning decades of process knowledge, trapped in documents, tribal memory, and legacy systems, into governed, production-ready workflows in minutes. Partnering with McKinsey is how we bring that reimagination to regulated industries at the scale they actually need, from financial services in New York and London to industrials in Frankfurt to sovereign-scale programmes in the Gulf.”
Arya Bolurfrushan, Founder and CEO, AppliedAI
“The AI transformations are often launched with a large ambition. But ambition without execution creates frustration, not value. This collaboration delivers what our clients are asking for: a way to rewire their operations with AI that is governed, auditable, fast. It brings AI to the P&L of the organizations.”
Abdellah Iftahy, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company; EEMA Business Building Practice Leader, Middle East
