McKinsey’s State of AI in 2025 report paints a clear picture: AI use has become widespread across industries, yet the majority of organisations remain early in their journey. While 88% of respondents say their organisation uses AI in at least one business function, only about one-third have reached the scaling stage across the enterprise.

For fashion brands — especially those relying on wholesale — the findings offer relevant guidance. The report identifies patterns in how companies adopt AI, where they see benefits, and how workflows are beginning to shift. These themes give valuable clues as to how AI may influence wholesale practices in the years ahead.

1. AI Adoption Is Broadening, but Scaling Remains Limited

One of the report’s central findings is that although AI is now common, most organisations are still experimenting or piloting rather than operating at scale. Larger organisations are significantly more likely to have progressed to the scaling stage than smaller ones.

For wholesale teams, this suggests that AI will not be adopted uniformly across the industry. Brands will move at different speeds depending on:

• internal resources,

• data readiness,

• and the maturity of their digital infrastructure.
  
  

The shift will be gradual rather than sudden, with AI becoming an incremental layer within established workflows.

2. AI Use Is Expanding Across Functions — Including Those Closest to Wholesale

McKinsey notes that organisations are increasingly using AI in multiple business functions. The most common areas include:

• IT

• Marketing and sales

• Knowledge management

• Product and service development
  
  

These are the very functions that shape how brands prepare collections, communicate with buyers, and manage sell-in cycles.

The report also points out that AI is frequently used for:

• capturing and delivering information through conversational interfaces,

• supporting marketing strategy creation,

• and automating customer-service-related tasks.
  
  

These trends indicate that AI is moving closer to the processes that underpin wholesale: communication, preparation, content, and sales enablement.

3. Content-Related Use Cases Are Growing

The report highlights that one of the most common AI use cases across industries is content support, particularly in marketing. This includes:

• drafting materials,

• generating ideas,

• and presenting knowledge to support strategy creation.

For fashion brands, where visual and narrative clarity are essential, this suggests that content cycles in wholesale may become:

• more iterative,

• more responsive,

• and more personalised.
  
  

This could include the ability to generate or adapt imagery more quickly, update look-and-feel elements faster, and tailor presentations to different markets or buyer profiles — all trends consistent with what McKinsey’s findings indicate about growing content-related AI adoption.

4. The Emergence of AI Agents May Influence Wholesale Workflows

A notable development in the report is the rise of AI agents — systems capable of planning and executing multi-step workflows. The report states that:

• 62% of organisations are experimenting with agents,

• while 23% are scaling at least one agentic use case.
  
  

Today, agent use is most common in functions such as IT and knowledge management, but the presence of agentic systems in marketing, sales, and product development is beginning to grow.

In the wholesale context, this trend could shape how brands prepare for buyer meetings, monitor account health, or analyse performance data. Agents provide a new type of assistance that could eventually support parts of the brand–buyer relationship-building process by surfacing relevant information more quickly and reducing the need for manual research.

5. AI Is Viewed as a Catalyst for Innovation More Than Immediate Financial Impact

According to the report:

• 64% of respondents say AI has improved innovation,

• 45% report improved customer satisfaction,

• and 39% attribute measurable EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) impact at the enterprise level.
  
  

In other words, the early impact of AI is more qualitative than financial.

This distinction matters for wholesale. It suggests that the initial influence of AI may appear in:

• the way brands prepare their seasonal messaging,

• the clarity of their internal processes,

• or the consistency of buyer engagement,

before translating into measurable commercial gains.

6. Data Readiness and Clear Governance Are Essential

Across all respondents, McKinsey finds that organisations realising the most value from AI are those that invest in:

• solid data foundations,

• clear technology infrastructure,

• human-in-the-loop validation processes,

• and centrally coordinated governance.

For wholesale, where product, buyer, and performance data accumulate season after season, these findings highlight the importance of clean, well-structured datasets. Reliable data practices will become increasingly important as AI becomes more embedded in commercial operations.

Looking Ahead

McKinsey’s report does not predict dramatic disruption. Instead, it reveals an industry steadily progressing toward more integrated and mature use of AI. For fashion brands, the findings point toward a future where wholesale remains human-centric, but the processes around it become more informed, more connected, and more supported by intelligent systems.

The coming years are likely to be defined not by sudden change, but by incremental refinement, as AI becomes a natural part of how brands manage information, build collections, and engage with their buyers.