|
The AI boom is here and consultants aren’t exactly at the forefront of it.
Consulting firms over the past three years have wagered billions on the hope that they would play an essential role in the AI boom, helping the world’s largest corporations transform themselves with the new technology.
Done right, it could prove to be a boon for an industry already hurting from macroeconomic pressures and layoffs. Collectively, firms made billions of dollars in artificial-intelligence-related commitments and put out aggressive campaigns designed to capitalize on corporate FOMO, or fear of missing out.
My colleague Isabelle Bousquette and I looked at how clients quickly encountered a mismatch between the pitch and what consultants could actually deliver. They found that consultants, who often had no more expertise on AI than they did internally, struggled to deploy use cases that created real business value.
Advisory heavyweights—including Big Four accounting firms Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and Ernst & Young and pure consulting firms McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group—for years have helped enterprises get up to speed on technologies like the cloud and perform vital but unsexy tech implementations, like enterprise resource planning systems.
That expertise hasn’t translated into a playbook for deploying something as cutting edge as generative AI in the enterprise at scale, tech leaders told us. “When you think about something that’s just so new, you can’t really buy that experience,” said Greg Meyers, chief digital and technology officer at Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Merck Chief Information and Digital Officer Dave Williams put it more bluntly: “We love our partners, but oftentimes they’re learning on our dime.”
Share your thoughts: Is your company using consultants to help deploy generative AI? Join the conversation at the end of the story here.
|
