McKinsey and Parloa announce alliance for customer-facing AI technology

New collaboration pairs McKinsey's deep operations expertise and advanced agentic AI capabilities with Parloa's AI Agent Management Platform to help enterprises deliver customer service with the help of AI agents.

NEW YORK and BERLIN, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Agentic CX leader Parloa today announced an alliance with McKinsey & Company aimed at closing the readiness gap keeping most enterprises from successfully managing AI agents in customer conversations. McKinsey teams, including QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, bring expertise to assess organizational readiness, design and engineer agentic solutions, and shape the technology, governance, and talent frameworks needed for sustainable adoption. Parloa enables customers to build, optimize and manage AI agents across the full customer lifecycle and all channels, with built-in controls to improve every conversation. 

McKinsey research has found that roughly one-third of enterprises currently do not have the operational governance in place to sustain deployed AI agents. Similarly, when Parloa surveyed CX operators about their confidence in managing AI agents, less than 25% of all respondents said they felt confident in their ability to design and evaluate AI agents.

Through this collaboration teams can more effectively tailor AI agents across an enterprise's existing systems, processes, and customer needs, and ensure customer issues are resolved quickly and to a greater degree of satisfaction.

"We built this collaboration to cross the divide between strategy and execution in customer operations," said Chris Silver, Chief Revenue Officer at Parloa. "McKinsey brings the deep readiness diagnostics and operational expertise, and Parloa brings its agent management platform to support personalized, proactive customer interactions across service channels. We are already jointly advising several large-scale clients in this way, and this formal alliance now positions us to deliver our proven approach to innovative enterprises across the US, Europe and the rest of the globe."

"Most organizations know they need to move on AI, but few have been able to execute the change management successfully," said Brian Blackader, Partner at McKinsey. "Our research points to this gap and highlights that many AI projects fail to realize their targeted value. By pairing our operations expertise and QuantumBlack's AI capabilities with leading frontier AI companies like Parloa, we can help clients realize improved service quality, customer loyalty, and revenue."

Parloa's platform is built with the depth and maturity enterprises need to run agentic CX at scale. It already serves a global roster of Fortune 100 customers and meets the operational rigor required when advising clients on agentic CX solutions. McKinsey Partner, Becca Kleinstein, will speak at Parloa's WAVE Summit US, November 4-5.

About Parloa
Parloa empowers global enterprises to build, train and manage AI agents for premier customer experiences. Founded by Malte Kosub and Stefan Ostwald, Parloa began with the belief that every great conversation is the start of a relationship, a principle that still guides how the company builds technology today. Leading global brands use Parloa's advanced AI agents to improve service at scale, increase customer loyalty, and unlock new revenue. Parloa employs more than 600 people across eight offices throughout the US and Europe.

About McKinsey & Company
McKinsey is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organizations accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth. We work with clients across the private, public, and social sectors to solve complex problems and create positive change for all their stakeholders. McKinsey helps organizations transform and optimize their operations, combining deep functional expertise, advanced technologies, and AI-enabled solutions to drive productivity, elevate customer and employee experiences, and deliver sustainable performance improvements.

Parloa Media Team
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SOURCE Parloa