Speaking in July 2026, McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels laid out a case for what he described as a potential “golden age” for consulting — not driven by any single trend, but by three converging at once: artificial intelligence, geopolitical realignment, and the energy transition.
Each of these forces individually would be enough to keep demand for outside expertise elevated. Together, Sternfels argued, they’re pushing organizations into genuinely unfamiliar territory more often than at any point in recent memory — restructuring supply chains around new geopolitical realities, retooling operations around AI, and rebuilding energy strategy from the ground up. That combination is generating exactly the kind of complexity that drives businesses to seek outside guidance rather than navigate it alone.
For firms operating in trade and cross-border consulting specifically, the read-through is fairly direct: the same forces reshaping global supply chains — tariff shifts, route disruption, new compliance requirements — are the forces creating demand for the kind of structured, evidence-based guidance consulting firms exist to provide. Complexity, in other words, is turning into opportunity for those positioned to help clients make sense of it.