AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’
AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’
By Chip Cutter
Aug. 2, 2025 11:00 am ET
If AI can analyze information, crunch data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant?
Companies pay dearly for McKinsey’s human expertise, and for nearly a century they have had good reason: The elite firm’s armies of consultants have helped generations of CEOs navigate the thorniest of challenges, synthesizing complex information and mapping out what to do next.
Now McKinsey is trying to steer through its own existential transformation. Artificial intelligence can increasingly do the work done by the firm’s highly paid consultants, often within minutes.
That reality is pushing the firm to rewire its business. AI is now a topic of conversation at every meeting of McKinsey’s board, said Bob Sternfels, the firm’s global managing partner. The technology is changing the ways McKinsey works with clients, how it hires and even what projects it takes on.
And McKinsey is rapidly deploying thousands of AI agents. Those bots now assist consultants in building PowerPoint decks, taking notes and summing up interviews and research documents for clients. The most-used bot is one that helps employees write in a classic “McKinsey tone of voice”—language the firm describes as sharp, concise and clear. Another popular agent checks the logic of a consultant’s arguments, verifying the flow of reasoning makes sense.
Sternfels said he sees a day in the not-too-distant future when McKinsey has one AI agent for every human it employs.
“We’re going to continue to hire, but we’re also going to continue to build agents,” he said.
Already, the shape of the company is shifting. The firm has reduced its head count from about 45,000 people in 2023 to 40,000 through layoffs and attrition, in part to correct for an aggressive pandemic hiring spree. It has since also rolled out roughly 12,000 AI agents.
“Do I think that this is existential for our profession? Yes, I do,” said Kate Smaje, a senior partner Sternfels tapped to lead the firm’s AI efforts earlier this year. But, “I think it’s an existential good for us.”
Consulting is emerging as an early and high-profile test case for how dramatically an industry must shift to stay relevant in the AI era. McKinsey, like its rivals, grew by hiring professionals from top universities, throwing them at projects for clients—then billing companies based, in part, on the scope and duration of the project.
AI not only speeds up projects, but it means many can be done with far fewer people, said Pat Petitti, CEO of Catalant, a freelance marketplace for consultants. Junior employees will likely be affected most immediately, since fewer of them will be needed to do rote tasks on big projects. Yet slimmer staffing is expected to ripple through the entire consulting food chain, he said.
“You have to change the business model,” Petitti said. “You have to make a dramatic change.”
Avoiding a ‘suit with PowerPoint’
One immediate change is that fewer clients want to hire consulting firms for strategy advice alone. Instead, big companies are increasingly looking for a consultant to help them put new systems in place, manage change or learn new skills, industry veterans say.
“The age of arrogance of the management consultant is over now,” said Nick Studer, CEO of consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
Companies, Studer added, “don’t want a suit with PowerPoint. They want someone who is willing to get in the trenches and help them align their team and cocreate with their team.”
At McKinsey, Sternfels is trying to cement the notion that the firm is a partner, not adviser, to clients. About a quarter of the company’s work today is in outcomes-based arrangements: McKinsey is paid partly on whether a project achieves certain results.
Advising on AI and related technology now makes up 40% of the firm’s revenue, one reason Sternfels is pushing McKinsey to evolve alongside its clients. “You don’t want somebody who is helping you to not be experimenting just as fast as you are,” he said.
The firm’s leaders are adamant that McKinsey isn’t looking to reduce the size of its workforce because of AI. Sternfels said the firm still plans to hire “aggressively” in the coming years.
But the size of teams is changing. Traditionally, a strategy project with a client might require an engagement manager—essentially, a project leader—plus 14 consultants. Today, it might need an engagement manager plus two or three consultants, alongside a few AI agents and access to “deep research” capabilities, Smaje said. Partners with decades of experience might prove more indispensable to projects, in part, because they have seen problems before.
“You can get to a pretty good, average answer using the technology now. So the kind of basic layer of mediocre expertise goes away,” Smaje said. “But the distinctive expertise becomes even more valuable.”
The fastest learners
How McKinsey changes is a topic of much interest inside the firm. In October, roughly 2,500 McKinsey partners will descend on Chicago, where the company was founded in 1926, when a University of Chicago professor named James O. McKinsey began advising businesses.
The meeting will open a year of centenary celebrations inside the firm. In between the dinners, speeches and historical reflections, AI is expected to be a topic coursing through the multiday gathering.
AI-proofing McKinsey means taking on new work, too. The firm is targeting projects once the realm of boutique firms, such as helping companies to identify and groom future executives. McKinsey has long had its own reputation as a “leadership factory,” training CEOs and bosses, and Sternfels said the firm can apply its internal expertise to others.
“That is something I don’t think will be disrupted by AI,” he said.
As McKinsey recruits, it is looking for people who can demonstrate they are fast learners. “Increasingly, you’re going to have to learn over a career at a rate you and I have never seen,” he said.
It also wants something else: People who can work well with others.
“It may sound pretty obvious, but it’s an increasingly important skill if you want to drive change in an organization,” Sternfels said.
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4 August, 2025 “The age of arrogance of the management consultant is over now” coming from the CEO of Wyman is akin to AOC proclaiming the end of DEI.
4 August, 2025 Hey, let’s not boil the ocean here; there remains plenty of low-hanging fruit to optimize in consulting. Let’s circle back and synergize as we get our ducks in a row to pivot to value-add products in our space.
5 August, 2025 Very clever Nick - my first giggle of the day - thank you.
5 August, 2025 Happy to help. Here is my bill for $10,000.00.
4 August, 2025 I demand you let me pay you $700/hour to justify my decision to lay off a quarter of my workforce.
4 August, 2025 No problem. How many PowerPoint slides do you need? For $700 I can give you half a page.
4 August, 2025 Having worked with McKinsey consultants, my observations.
- The consultants are smart but lack the in-depth knowledge of the context and resort to word jargon. Create as many powerpoint slides as tolerated so they can CYA (cover your ass).
- They rarely brought original insights but we learnt about what our peers were doing for similar problems. I assume they’d sucked our working ideas and marketed them to other customers.
- They are expensive. Very very expensive.
5 August, 2025 As a former consultant at one of the big firms, I concur.
4 August, 2025 McKinsey Is the only firm that could be completely replaced by an AI Bot.
4 August, 2025 Consultants are fine if they have experience. Simply throwing newly minted, unskilled MBAs at a problem sounds problematic. Then again, ask a Harvard MBA and they will tell you differently. lol
4 August, 2025
- Step 1. Hired consulting firm.
- Step 2. Firm interviews CEO. What do you want to do?
- Step 3. Interview all levels of managers.
- Step 4. Write report with recommendations. (see Step 2)
- Step 5. Cash check and disappear and never have to deal with consequences of recommendations.
4 August, 2025 Having done this type of consulting - here’s the strategy. Talk to line people and ask them “what’s the solution”. Take their recommendations and make a pretty PP and present to the Board. Cash your check. The line folk know the answers!
4 August, 2025 The McKinsey way in its purest form.. Currently quite conflicting with AI, but these kinds of forward-looking perspectives are still valuable.
4 August, 2025 McKinsey does some very questionable work, sometimes useless, often what the executive team should be doing on their own and in some cases harmful.
But if used properly they can do good work i.e. where very specific outside real expertise is needed. I used them twice to do complex feasibility studies on major healthcare projects. The work by the frontline consultants was expert, thoughtful and resulted in useful information and conclusions.
4 August, 2025 Lol, I asked ChatGPT to give us a strategic direction sounding like a McKinsey consultant. Here’s what we got. Pretty good, right?! The good news is it was free.
“Executive Summary The organization stands at an inflection point where incremental optimization will no longer suffice to ensure sustainable growth and competitive advantage. To capture long-term value, leadership should pursue a dual-path strategy that simultaneously strengthens the core business and accelerates diversification into adjacencies with high-margin potential. This approach balances near-term performance with future-proofing against disruptive market forces.”
5 August, 2025 Sounds just like consultant babble without the huge price tag!
4 August, 2025 And just think, a costly MBA wasn’t needed.
4 August, 2025 As a strategy professor I can say with confidence that AI is terrible at strategy. It’s not built, at present, to think. And it will be a while before that happens. It overpowers other disciplines. I can see why Mac is worried. And it’s probably good that it is. It probably does impact sub routines. Which could impact basic deliverables. I suppose it does upgrade the expectations for top consultants. That’s a good thing though
5 August, 2025 Strategy professor? To paraphrase a famous professor, “A professor professes things.”
What kind of strategies have you actually led and implemented with their success attributed to you?
4 August, 2025 First of all, AI depending on which product can produce outstanding advice.
Secondly, I started working in technology in the early 70’s when most chips had a few dozen transistors vs millions today. Thats where we are with AI today. The speed and the magnitude of change we will see in a few short years will dwarf, by orders of magnitude, anything we’ve ever seen. In history.
It been my recent experience that “legacy” (for want of a better term) business people are out to lunch. (Edited)
4 August, 2025 You haven’t tried much, have you, prof?
4 August, 2025 Actually, I have. And my students have, including executive MBAs. Student results are predictable and bad. Well written though.
4 August, 2025 Lol, so I asked Gork to write us a recommendation sounding like a McKinsey consultant! Below is its introduction…its detail was similar golden words and platitudes like too many consultants. There are some good one but they are rare and are more focused on providing unique expertise.
“Dear [Stakeholder/Client], In alignment with our rigorous analysis of your organization’s operational and strategic landscape, we recommend the adoption of a Transformative Value Creation Framework to drive sustainable growth and competitive differentiation. This recommendation is grounded in a comprehensive assessment of market dynamics, internal capabilities, and emerging opportunities, leveraging McKinsey’s proprietary methodologies and cross-industry insights.”
4 August, 2025 I’ve always wondered why any CEO would have to hirer a consultant to help them do strategic planning! That’s one of the essential tasks of a CEO, they should certainly have the skills to do thier job! Plus strategic planning requires hands on work by the executive team, not outsiders. A consultant for a very specific unique expertise yes, but not to do the job of the CEO and executive team.
5 August, 2025 Because the board wanted external validation of the strategy, so in the event things went south, they had cover from shareholders and activist investors
4 August, 2025 To be fair, extraordinarily complex challenges do arise from time to time,‘that can have serious bottom-line implications. There is a place for teams of brilliant consultants that can come up with good ideas. The problems include not hiring the right people, waiting too late, and, to be completely fair, not following the recommendations as put forth, trying to shortcut important parts of the plan while following the easy parts.
Let’s not forget CEOs cashing out in the middle of projects. (Edited)
4 August, 2025 As I said I was speaking specifically for strategic planning, one of the most essential roles of a CEO. It should never be delegated to outsiders. I have seen it do 3 times, once with no results and twice with disastrous results. Once the breakup of a whole healthcare system. I saw it work once but the consultant only facilitated the work of the executive team and board.
I agree if it involves a very complex component or something very new, a consultant can be helpful. But only if they have the specific expertise not general management skills.
I also agree not following the plans can be a problem but that is far less likely if the plan is the executives’ not consultants.
3 August, 2025 The McKinsey consultants I had to endure in banking were arrogant snots who really didn’t know much, especially in specialty areas where they would have detailed reports that didn’t really have much meaning to them. Just a bunch of data.
3 August, 2025 What a shame …. the parasites responsible for countless layoffs and bankruptcies of their clients now face extinction.
3 August, 2025 Yep, no tears here.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey has been overrated for 100 years.
I have seen so many instances of people failing up into the role of CEO, or being appointed that position out of nepotism, or because of a limited talent pool of people that are trusted by family controlled companies (such as in developing countries).
They don’t know what to do. So they hire a consulting firm, such as McKinsey, to figure it all out for them. Then McKinsey people infiltrate the company, waste everyone’s time, and have lots of “big meetings.” The result is that the incompetent CEO is more confused than ever, employees are annoyed and roll their eyes at any plan presented by the consultants or even appears to come from the consultants, and the company flounders.
Historically, the best way to identify if a once good to great company would fail in the next 5 years was to find out if they were a current McKinsey client.
I’ve seen it so many times. I’d like to get McKinsey’s current client list. That would be a great list from which to chose short positions.
3 August, 2025 Could AI in its current iteration have correctly advised Sears – in the 1990s – how to counter the threat of Amazon ? That is, could AI as we experience it in mid 2025 correctly analyzed Sears’ vast operations (as of mid 1990s) and compared them to Amazon’s vast operations (at the same time) and formulated a way for Sears to beat Amazon at its own game?
3 August, 2025 Sears should have been Amazon. They were, the late 19/early 20th centuries with their catalogs. They took advantage of the high tech at the time (railroads) to deliver their catalogs and products. They went off track on all the financial stuff, and didn’t have the vision to see the analogy between the internet and railroad. No, AI wouldn’t catch that. That’s why AI is a tool, and you still need people who think and imagine.
3 August, 2025 Oh, McKinsey. No comment. P.S. I hope no one has to go through what I have been through.
3 August, 2025 If McKinsey has employ AI so can its soon-to-be former clients.
3 August, 2025 If AI can analyze information, crunch data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant? You made the false assumption that they were ever relevant
3 August, 2025 A sell signal for me has always been “We’ve brought on a consultant to solve problem XYZ” If management can’t figure out the source problems on it’s own, I don’t want to be invested with them.
3 August, 2025 Consulting firms and consultants are facing a “knowledge worker” existential crisis. AI accelerates the value of a true knowledge worker and demonetizes those that aren’t.
Consulting firms have legions of folks in the latter camp and will have to rethink their models for recognizing the true value of knowledge workers and how to support them.
Peter Drucker’s “knowledge worker, who are unfamiliar with the concept:
Key Characteristics: Expertise: Knowledge workers possess specialized knowledge and skills in a particular area. Intellectual Contribution: Their work involves analysis, problem-solving, and the application of knowledge. Independence: They often operate with a degree of autonomy and are not simply subordinates. Motivation: Knowledge workers are often intrinsically motivated by the work itself and the opportunity to use their expertise. Challenges of Managing Knowledge Workers: Measuring Productivity: It can be difficult to quantify the output and value of knowledge work, which is often intangible. Motivation and Engagement: Organizations need to create a work environment that fosters collaboration, innovation, and a sense of purpose for knowledge workers. Continuous Learning: Knowledge workers need to stay current with the latest developments in their field and engage in ongoing learning and development.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey came to my department and asked me two questions: 1). What would you change?
- What is non-essential?
This is their basic M.O. to get you give them great ideas that they could put in their report.
I told them:
- I wouldn’t change anything. We had a standing Change Committee and if there was something we thought that should be changed - we changed it yesterday.
2). Nothing is essential. I was ran a service department. The company could eliminate us, and then they would just have to deal with the risk of not having us.
The whole McKinsey model: 1) hire bright kids out of top schools who have no practical experience but look good,speak well, and make slick presentatons, 2) get the client to do their work, and 3) most importantly everything is about building relationships with the top dogs: board members, CEO’s, other top professional firms for referrals - play golf with execs, join their social clubs, political orgs, non-profits. As long as the CEO is their best bud, they will get hired, and protected - it doesn’t really matter what they do.
If the board is unhappy with the CEO, he just says “I’ll hire McKinsey” and he’s protected. If the board is unhappy with the results the CEO just says “McKinsey told me what to do” and he’s protected. So why shouldn’t the CEO splurge millions of stockholder money on McKinsey to preserve his million dollar job? It’s a win win for the CEO.
3 August, 2025 Well said!
3 August, 2025 Generative “AI” is not much different than the “Chinese Room” thought experiment. But it can be useful, depending on circumstances
3 August, 2025 This is just what happened when wordprocessors and cheap computers emerged. Consulting firms were forced to buy capital vs charge for someone to type a report. I lived through this at Arthur D Little in the 70s and 80s.
3 August, 2025 I have worked with McKinsey several times. You pay through the nose to be told what you already know and get a report that goes in a drawer and never see the light of day again. If AI destroys McKinsey it is doing us all a favour.
3 August, 2025 Can AI measure the cost of over-reach that causes backlash like what s being experienced by United Health? If so, it will be an improvement over McKinsey’s advice to “delay, deny, defend.”
3 August, 2025 I reckon the next ‘Office Space’ will have AI bots elevating slackers to managerial roles and moving good and loyal employees to the mailroom. The move from soulless human consultant to soulless bot will hardly be discernible.
3 August, 2025 I have been in Fortune 20 financial company and seen McKinsey people done more damage than good. They sell bs to lines of business ceos grandiose impractical very high level plans with no substance. Ok that is called strategy. And their arrogance is always through the roof of a 60 story corporate building. Now they’re having their own AI moment. Poetic justice.
3 August, 2025 All we hear lately is AI, AI, AI. Believe me, right now it can be a convenient time saver but it needs a knowledgeable human to steer it. It reminds me of when spreadsheets came about, it too was a convenient time saver but if you put in the wrong formula, and didn’t know it, you have problems.
3 August, 2025 Have you tried telling Chatgpt to do a LBO? M&A? Marketing Brand Playbook with detailed digital tactics? Lot of headcounts will roll in the next 5 years if not 2.5 years given the pace and speed since Chatgpt 1.
3 August, 2025 It definately produces output that can be passed off for many cases. For strategy, however, it actually has no “thought” to it. It is just statistical regurgitation.
3 August, 2025 Oh, I’ve tried several different AIs from constructing a non-fiction book to analyzing financial portfolios and medical lab reports. The results are sketchy at best. When I point out flaws or holes or out and out misinformation the AI usually responds, ’ thank you for catching that, you’re right, let me …’.
3 August, 2025 If I can just provide a slight ‘correction’ to the first paragraph in this story:
“The elite firm’s armies of consultants have helped generations of CEOs navigate the thorniest of challenges, synthesizing complex information and mapping out what to do next.”
Should read: “The elite firm’s armies of overpaid consultants have helped generations of CEOs, in addition to getting kickback from consulting payouts, have a place to cast blame when things go wrong.”
3 August, 2025 bingo
3 August, 2025 Paving the cowpath vs reimagining the industry? Taking notes and other low-order use cases trivialize the power of AI. Simulating competitors and spawning red/blue AI agentic teams to explore options offer a lot more leverage. The top firms are very vulnerable to being disrupted. Seems poetic! From a life long consultant. (Edited)
3 August, 2025 They aren’t going to tell their competitors, through an article, all their uses of AI, just the lower level common ones.
3 August, 2025 Yep, there are still a lot of supposedly knowledgable people in positions of responsibility out there that are completely underestimating where this is going, and at what speed.
3 August, 2025 Management consultants too often offer little more than PowerPoints and jargon, and I doubt AI will change that. They don’t even understand the actual definition of “existential”. That’s ‘clear, concise language’?
3 August, 2025 AI does not think, that is what consultants are supposed to do at a high level across many skill levels, creativity, experiences, etc. If the earnings of the top tier consultancies do not skyrocket then it may be that their skill levels were way overblown in the first place. The pressure is on.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey has made a lot of money telling company CEOs what time it is on their watch
3 August, 2025 “It also wants something else: People who can work well with others.”
I have often wondered if those who called in Consultants were really afflicted with an inability to use their own in-house, knowledgeable of the company and its business employees. Precisely because they didn’t have this “work well with others”ability.
I have seen only a few consultant work products, but with all I have marveled that large sums of money and much internal disruption were the costs of an outsider telling “us” what we already knew - just couldn’t muster to do or to face on our own. (-Leadership). And then we were under a gun to follow what an outsider told us we said but exactly as they said or we would have wasted all the money.
I never saw a consultant report have a life of more than a few months. (Edited)
4 August, 2025 In those cases a consultant probably wasn’t needed…just the executive team getting to work and doing thier job. I have sure seen those too. But I have used consultants well too. Two were for very major healthcare/hospital feasibility studies. Another was a very complex funds flow project in an academic medical center. Both had two characteristics 1. very specific knowledge and expertise and 2. in situations where we didn’t have the capacity or time to do it ourselves. They gave us useful work product that we were able to make decisions on and take actions.
4 August, 2025 For the examples which you offer, it makes perfect sense. I as well have used consultants to bring experience to hospitality renovation and repositioning projects, although much smaller than those you describe. I admit, sometimes it was to put a voice at the table which spoke with deep experience.
3 August, 2025 OK, I have studied AI results, and been Punished by AI assistance on the Phone. TONS of ERRORS. AI is a Hoax, designed to Make Money for CEOs. This will Destroy the Middle Class, while evil UnAmerican CEOs laugh, all the way to the bank.
3 August, 2025 I don’t know about the Hoax, but it is horribly error prone and over-trusted.
3 August, 2025 There will come a point, and I hope very very soon where people will ask questions “Why should I buy from you CompanyX when you just laid off 1,000’s of people”
3 August, 2025 No they’re not going to do that. And your politics is wrong for this platform.
3 August, 2025 This is not just a McKinsey thing. Almost every company with large teams assessing large amounts of data is exposed to this technology shift. The most experienced professionals will need to adopt AI rapidly to keep their head above water. In some respects, it reminds me of the shift from data center crunching to personal spreadsheets.
3 August, 2025 Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of leaches. But don’t write their obituary yet. They are very smart, shrewd, and adept at slipping the noose. In the winner-take-all world they are most likely to be the last man standing. (Edited)
3 August, 2025 Back in the 70s, when I entered the work world, a popular expression was “No one ever got fired for hiring IBM.” Substitute McKinsey for IBM.
3 August, 2025 Snake Oil meeting a Greasy Pole.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey - the company that CEO’s use to oursource accountability. They will still need a human scapegoat when a strategy goes pear shaped, which surprisingly happens more often than not.
3 August, 2025 Ah this really breaks my heart.
3 August, 2025 It would also break my heart — but people say I don’t have one. That means I would make a great McKinsey consultant.
3 August, 2025 Now McKinsey will be pushing Fentanyl with AI. The Sackler family may come out of retirement for this.
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3 August, 2025 You may be on to something. AI is amoral. But McKinsey is immoral, and there may lie their competitive edge in the brave new world.
3 August, 2025 So you hire an AI Tool to design your company reorganization and pay the money upfront - and the tool recommends firing the C-Suite and replacing them with AI to save money.
3 August, 2025 So people with experience are going to become more valuable but entry level people will not be needed. How are you going to get experienced people if no one will hire entry level (since AI can do that).
3 August, 2025 If only AI actually could with coding.
3 August, 2025 Not a fan of management consultants. But if AI gets all of its learning from the past, how well will it handle new and different situations?
3 August, 2025 Well, probably no worse than human consultants, but faster and cheaper.
3 August, 2025 PowerPoint is to strategy what Walmart Ramen noodles is to gastronomy.
3 August, 2025 That makes zero sense. A low-brow sales guy software tool has nothing to do with strategy.
3 August, 2025 Poetic justice.
3 August, 2025 Tiny violin.
3 August, 2025 Unless you’ve worked in consulting, you might not see in this article the sea change occurring at McKinsey: 1) 40% of the firm’s revenue is generated through AI-based work; 2) Traditional client teams used to be 1 manager and 14 more junior consultants, now they’re 1 manager and 3 junior consultants. This will be a staggering reduction in head count in the not-too-distant future, mostly due to AI taking on most of the lower level work of junior consultants. But what happens to revenue at McKinsey when they have significantly less personnel billing hourly? (Edited)
3 August, 2025 Revenue will be based on outcome based compensation, according to the article. Based on my experience that will be the death of them.
3 August, 2025 Canada owes a giant debt of gratitude to McKinsey, who advised the reigning Liberals to increase immigration targets substantially. Our health care system and housing markets are now unmanageable. Nearly 20% of full time jobs are held by “temporary” workers who never leave. McKinsey is so deep in the Liberals pocket that they no longer have to bid on projects. The Liberals just hand over the check book and let them run wild. A review by the Auditor General found that the government failed to prove they had received value for money spent and McKinsey regularly violated conflict of interest guidelines.
3 August, 2025 Without increased immigration Canada would have dried up and blown away. Among demographers studying population and worker decline through ought the world, Canada is one of the countries with its head above water.
3 August, 2025 If AI’s data inputs are accurate, it will reduce the drudgery of collecting information. But as long as planet Earth is populated by human beings, rather than robots, I doubt that it can serve as a substitute for human vision, creativity and innovation.
3 August, 2025 Good riddance to management consultants. I can’t think of a more useless industry in the private sector. Too bad for the English majors who won’t be able to “pivot” their way out of six-figure student loans.
3 August, 2025 And sales engineers. Their little tools are worthless.
3 August, 2025 Maybe I’m too cynical, but isn’t hiring management consultants an implicit admission that your top executives are less than competent to do their jobs?
3 August, 2025 Yes. But they hire them to defer blame when things go sideways
3 August, 2025 Accenture is a better model for AI deployment than McKinsey.
3 August, 2025 Tell us more.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey Consultants come up with the worst ideas. They are clearly not worth the money they are paid, but more importantly, they damage your businesses in ways you never imagined.
3 August, 2025 Some other start-up is going to figure out a better, faster, cheaper way with AI to beat McKinsey. The new business that McKinsey is pursuing are outside of its corporate memory, and other do it better. Reminds me of poor Kodak, a chemical engineering genius, trying to go digital. fast learners. “Increasingly, you’re going to have to learn over a career at a rate you and I have never seen,” so McKinsey’s solution is to hire Mentats as in the sci-fi Dune series?
3 August, 2025 A bit of a jumble there, but you basically have it right. They are going to have circles run around them.
3 August, 2025 We still need people to shoe horses, but we don’t need as many as we once did. Somehow, the world continued to spin on its axis.
3 August, 2025 haha yeah and farriers don’t make enough to feed a house cat.
3 August, 2025 Dumbest company ever. Near useless
3 August, 2025 Boo Hoo
3 August, 2025 Three decades in the industry I have never, ever seen anything insightful nor innovative coming out from McKinsey. McKinsey’s role has always been to provide cover to management for unpopular decisions. Seems like that role will not only not go away, but become even more popular than ever. (“Hey this is what we’re gonna do because McKinsey recommended we listen to AI…”)
3 August, 2025 McKinsey was the firm that told AT&T Board not to invest in cell phones. Said it was a niche market. It was too expensive. That set AT&T back 15+ years as they had to acquire their way into the cell phone business. In 1994, AT&T acquired McCaw Cellular Communications for $11.5 billion, one of the largest mergers in US history at the time.
Weak leaders bring in consultants. Does a new minted 28 year-old MBA really know more, or have better insights, than competent executives? Even if they’re 45 and they’ve seen a lot of different industries, they rarely add more value than a truly effective executive.
3 August, 2025 McKinsey was also the firm that advised Swissair and ultimately led to its demise and eventual acquisition by Lufthansa. We can also point to their consulting work with Allstate that led to software-driven claims shortchanging. Hey, and while we’re at it, how about the cool consulting they did for Purdue Pharma?
3 August, 2025 It’s over
3 August, 2025 AI’s Job is to be better than the consultants. So goodbye, Mckinzie And other consulting firms. Over time the business will be to deliver solutions to companies, and that may attract more business from more companies. I call that piecework. The AI consultants will suggest to businesses that hire them to use more AI for faster results.
3 August, 2025 Management consultants are pretty useless. They come in, tell you what to do not knowing anything specific about the company, and leave a big mess behind when they leave.
3 August, 2025 Yep–they come in, borrow your watch, and tell you what time it is.