How AI is quietly taking over the consulting industry—from slide decks to strategy sessions.
By Skeeter Wesinger
June 10, 2025
Let’s say you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You’ve just paid McKinsey a few million dollars to help streamline your supply chain or finesse your M&A pitch. What you may not know is that some of that brainpower now comes from a machine.
McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group—the Big Three of strategy consulting—have embraced artificial intelligence not just as a service they sell, but as a co-worker. At McKinsey, a proprietary AI platform now drafts proposals, generates PowerPoint decks, and even outlines market entry strategies. That used to be a junior analyst’s job. Now it’s done in seconds by software.
The firm insists this is progress, not replacement. “Our people will be doing the things that are more valuable to our clients,” a McKinsey spokesperson told the Financial Times.¹ It’s the kind of line that sounds better in a press release than in a staff meeting.
Meanwhile, Bain & Company has rolled out a custom chat interface powered by OpenAI.² It’s more than just a chatbot—it’s a digital consigliere that surfaces insights, runs simulations, and drafts client memos with GPT-powered fluency. Over at Boston Consulting Group, AI-driven engagements already make up 20 percent of the firm’s total revenue.³ That’s not a rounding error—it’s a shift in the business model.
This Isn’t Just Efficiency. It’s a Redefinition.
AI doesn’t sleep, bill overtime, or ask for a promotion. It digests case studies, slurps up real-time market data, and spins out “insights” at breakneck speed. A proposal that once took two weeks now gets turned around in two hours. A slide deck that required a team of Ivy Leaguers is built by algorithms trained on millions of prior decks.
That’s the efficiency part. But the real story is what happens next.
Strategy consulting has always sold scarcity—the idea that elite firms offered unique, human insight. But what happens when AI systems trained on decades of reports can replicate that thinking, and maybe even improve on it?
“Empathy,” the firms say. “Judgment.” “Relationship building.” Those are the buzzwords that now define human value in consulting. If the machine can do the math, the humans must do the trust. It’s a plausible pivot—until clients bring their own AI to the table.
The Consultants Are Pivoting—Fast
McKinsey and its rivals aren’t fighting the change—they’re monetizing it. They’re building internal tools while also selling AI implementation strategies to clients. In effect, they’re profiting twice: first by automating their own work, then by teaching others how to do the same.
This is the classic consulting playbook—turn a threat into a line item.
But beneath the slideware optimism is an existential question. If your AI builds the deck, drafts the strategy, and even suggests the pricing model, what exactly are you buying from a consultant?
Maybe it’s still the name on the invoice. Maybe it’s the assurance that someone—some human—stands behind the recommendation. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of a new normal: where the smartest person in the room isn’t a person at all.
Citations
- Mark Marcellis, “McKinsey’s AI Revolution Has Begun,” Financial Times, May 29, 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/mckinsey-ai-presentation-tools
- Derek Thompson, “How Bain Is Using OpenAI to Redefine Consulting,” The Atlantic, March 12, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/bain-openai-strategy
- David Gelles, “At BCG, AI Consulting Now Drives 20% of Revenue,” The New York Times, April 10, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/business/bcg-ai-revenue-growth