AI in Consulting: a report for 2025
How leading firms are navigating AI's twin impact: generating 20-40% revenue from AI projects while transforming internal operations
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Insights from Big 4, MBB & boutique firms
Analysis of $10-15Bn in AI investments
Based on work with elite consultancies
This whitepaper is for you if you are:
A Partner/Director wanting to understand AI's strategic implications for your firm
A transformation leader building your consultancy's AI roadmap and implementation plan
A consultant seeking to maximize personal productivity with AI tools
A boutique consultancy assessing 'build vs buy' decisions for AI tools
A firm leader wondering if AI will replace consultants or augment them
Anyone who needs to understand where consulting is heading in the AI age
What's Inside: Three Comprehensive Parts
PART I: Impact on Consultancies
(Organizational Level)
- •AI's twin impact: External (topline) vs Internal (bottom line) effects
- •How leading firms generate 20-40% revenue from AI projects today
- •Case study: Xavier AI and the future of AI-native consulting competitors
- •Build vs Buy dilemma with real examples from leading firms
- •Investment strategies: $1-3Bn commitments and what they're buying
PART II: Impact on Consultants
(Individual Level)
- •10 major workflows AI can augment today (covering 80-90% of daily tasks)
- •Harvard study results: 25% faster completion + 40% higher quality
- •When AI hurts: Tasks where performance drops to 60-70% correctness
- •5 future innovations: multimodality, reasoning models, agents, SLMs, tool calling
- •Real productivity data from consultants using AI in practice
PART III: Embedding AI Framework
(Implementation Guide)
- •7-dimension assessment matrix: Are you a Laggard, Follower, or Leader?
- •3 core pillars: People, Technical, Process & Organizational
- •Detailed breakdown of each dimension with maturity levels
- •5 quick wins to drive bottom-up transformation (requiring <2 hours/week)
- •Actionable frameworks you can implement Monday morning
Key Insights from the Report
For Consulting Leaders
- •
How McKinsey's Lilli achieved 75% monthly adoption with 17 uses per week per active user
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How Big 4 firms are spending $1-3Bn each on AI capabilities and infrastructure
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The 5 technological innovations (agents, reasoning models, small language models) reshaping consulting by 2026
- •
How to approach Build vs. Buy: McKinsey's proprietary approach vs Bain's ChatGPT Enterprise deployment
For Individual Consultants
- •
The 10 consulting workflows AI can augment today, covering 80-90% of daily tasks
- •
Harvard study results: 25% faster completion + 40% higher quality on tasks 'within the AI frontier'
- •
Critical warning: Performance drops to 60-70% correctness when using AI for wrong tasks
- •
How to think about the consultant's AI augmentation vs. replacement debate
Preview: Frameworks You'll Get
Workflow Breakdown
10 major consulting tasks with AI augmentation potential
Page 10 - Table of consulting workflows
Maturity Assessment
Evaluate your firm: Laggard, Follower, or Leader across 7 dimensions
Page 16 - Self-assessment matrix
Harvard Study Results
Hard data on when AI helps (25% faster) and when it hurts (performance drops)
Page 11 - Harvard research findings
⚡September 2025 Update: With reasoning models now live (Claude 4 Thinking, GPT-5 Thinking) and AI agents launching from major labs, the consulting industry is at an inflection point. This report helps you understand what's happening and what to do about it.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Written for business leaders, not engineers. Focuses on strategy, implementation, and organizational change rather than technical details.
Absolutely. The framework scales from solo practitioners to Big 4. Small firms can actually move faster on AI adoption than large firms. The 'quick wins' section is specifically designed for resource-constrained teams.
Published September 2025. Includes analysis of the latest model releases (Claude 4, GPT-5, reasoning models) and recent announcements from consulting firms. We track this space closely through ongoing training programs.
We believe in providing immediate value. No gates, no spam, no follow-up emails unless you explicitly opt in. Download, read, share with your team—no strings attached.
Ready to Navigate AI's Impact on Consulting?
After You Download
Assess Your Firm
Use the matrix on page 16 to evaluate where you stand across 7 dimensions
Pick One Quick Win
Implement one idea from page 17 this week—start small, build momentum
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