BCG, McKinsey, KPMG, and other consultants see rising demand for AI advisory services; BCG earns 20% of its revenue from AI-related work, vs. 0% two years ago
Rattled by tech's latest trend, businesses have turned to advisers at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and KPMG for guidance on adopting generative artificial intelligence. Mastodon: @waldoj@mastodon.social Mastodon: Waldo Jaquith / @waldoj@mastodon.social : I've spent many years as a consultant, both in the private sector and as a fed acting as a consultant to other agencies, and “hiring consultants to identify nails for you to use this hammer on” feels way more like blockchain than anything else. — In the 1950s, did companies hire McKinsey to figure out what to do with transistors or plastics? …
Context & Ripple Effects
Businesses seeking to adopt generative AI are creating a new advisory market for established consultancies. BCG had already framed AI integration as a major revenue source in a prior outlook for its AI integration business, and this report supplies an early measure of that shift.
The development matters because it turns AI adoption into billable implementation and strategy work, not simply software procurement. Later coverage of consultants launching AI-focused firms suggests the demand is also drawing new specialist competitors into the category.
First-order effects
- BCG, McKinsey, KPMG and peers gain a fast-growing source of client work as companies seek help selecting, integrating and governing generative-AI tools.
- For BCG, AI-related work has moved from no reported revenue two years earlier to one-fifth of revenue, making AI delivery materially important to its business mix.
Second-order effects
- Incumbent consultancies face pressure to build AI expertise and delivery capacity quickly, while clients are likely to compare broad strategic advice with more implementation-oriented engagements.
- Specialist AI consultancies gain an opening to compete for projects that large firms once dominated; that competitive pressure is consistent with later reports of AI-enabled smaller consultancies taking on larger workloads.
Third-order effects
- If AI adoption remains consulting-led, value may shift from one-off technology recommendations toward ongoing integration, workflow redesign and governance work—the complementary investments required to make AI useful inside organizations.
- The consulting market could become more bifurcated: large firms retain enterprise-scale transformation work, while AI-enabled specialists contest execution work. The eventual balance depends on whether AI tools reduce delivery labor faster than demand for advisory expands.
The trend: Generative AI is creating a services economy around organizational adoption, turning consulting firms’ AI capabilities into a core competitive and revenue driver.