Insights
AI and the future of consulting
Research and analysis on how AI is changing consulting firms: their competitors, their structure, their economics, their tools and their obligations. Written by Adrien Foucault, ex-McKinsey consultant and founder of Spaik. Third-party data is attributed; Spaik's analysis is labelled as such.
Annual report · Latest edition
The State of AI in Consulting 2026
Six shifts reshaping the industry: competition from AI labs and scale-ups, the thinning junior tier and the end of the pyramid, AI revenue and pricing pressure, agents deployed at scale, hallucinated citations as the first public AI failures, and the EU AI Act's in-force obligations.
Analysis
- AI agents
AI Agents in Consulting: How McKinsey, BCG, Bain and Other Firms Are Using Them
From Lilli to 25,000 agents at McKinsey, 18,000 custom GPTs at BCG and Bain's decision to buy rather than build: what the major firms deployed, what it saved, and why the measure is shifting from how many agents to how much value.
· 9 min read - Trust and verification
AI Hallucinations in Consulting: Why Verification Is Becoming a Business-Critical Skill
Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC Middle East all published reports with fabricated citations or claims in 2025 and 2026. What happened, why a firm's authority makes the damage worse, and how to build verification into delivery.
· 8 min read - Governance and regulation
EU AI Act for Consulting Firms: What Consultancies Need to Know
Articles 4, 5 and 25 already shape how consultancies can use and sell AI: literacy duties, prohibited practices with penalties up to 7% of turnover, and the risk of unknowingly becoming a provider. Plus the UK's principles-based position.
· 8 min read - Firm structure
How AI Is Reshaping the Consulting Pyramid
The junior tier is the most exposed, PwC's own numbers show why, and three shapes are emerging to replace the pyramid: the diamond, the obelisk and the hourglass. What each assumes, and what it means for recruitment and skills.
· 8 min read - Business models
How AI Is Changing Consulting Business Models and Pricing
Gartner's forecast, BCG's mix shift from 20% to 40% AI and technology revenue, the move from advice to execution, and the four models replacing the billable hour: outcome-based, consulting-as-a-service, asset-based and premium handmade.
· 8 min read - Competition
Are AI Labs Becoming Consulting Firms?
OpenAI's Deployment Company with McKinsey and Bain as partners, Anthropic's services arm, Palantir's forward-deployed engineers and 80/20 AI-native boutiques: the three new fronts incumbents face, mapped on one chart.
· 8 min read
Also from Spaik
- Prompt library for consultants and analysts40+ prompts for real consulting, IB and PE workflows.
- Frameworks and cheatsheetsPrompting best practices, AI risks, how LLMs work.
- Columns in Les Echos (in French)Adrien Foucault's op-eds on AI and professional services.