AI’s Impact on Consulting: How Firms Are Adapting to Stay Competitive

The question of what a consultant actually does has echoed through boardrooms and business schools for decades. For generations, the answer was rooted in a simple exchange: a client had a problem, and the consultant brought in outside expertise, sharp analysis, and a polished slide deck to solve it. The deliverable was often a binder of recommendations, a roadmap for the client to follow. Today, that binder is increasingly a live software platform, the roadmap is an integrated AI system, and the consultant is as likely to be building it as advising on it. The industry is undergoing its most profound identity crisis-or evolution-since the advent of the personal computer, driven by a single, overwhelming force: artificial intelligence.

I’ve watched this shift from the financial district, where the language of transformation is always in the air. But this isn’t just talk. The numbers are stark. Boston Consulting Group reported in April that AI and tech services now make up over 40% of its global revenue. At McKinsey, AI initiatives account for roughly the same share of work. This isn’t a side project; it’s becoming the main event. The demand is economic, pure and simple. Fiona Czerniawska, CEO of consulting research firm Source Global, notes that technology-related services have grown two to six times faster than traditional consulting sectors over the past five years. When growth speaks that loudly, every firm listens.

The response has been a strategic rush to rebrand. Tim Walsh, CEO of KPMG US, made a declarative statement at the World Economic Forum in January: “There is no doubt that our firm is a tech company.” For a firm founded in 1897, this is a remarkable pivot. Rob Fisher, KPMG’s vice chairman of advisory, framed it as a client-driven necessity. “We have to become more of a technology organization because clients want to consume our expertise that way,” he told Business Insider. This sentiment is echoed in hiring sprees. Accenture added nearly 40,000 AI and data professionals in two years. EY has brought on 61,000 technologists since 2023. PwC, in a move symbolic of the change, created a new engineering career track for the first time in its 170-year history.

On the ground, the daily work is transforming. Allison Heithoff, a consultant with five years at West Monroe, described her early role as “hands-to-keyboard work”—gathering data, configuring systems, manual testing. Now, AI handles much of that foundational labor. Her job has become more strategic and unexpectedly technical; she uses AI to code and develop client solutions, a skill her business administration degree never promised. This mirrors what I hear from contacts in the field. The grind of data synthesis is automated, pushing human value upstream into problem-framing, ethical governance, and managing the complex human side of change.

Yet, for all the rhetoric and hiring, a crucial tension remains. Is this a fundamental change in what these firms are, or just in what they sell? The industry’s history is one of layering new capabilities onto a stable core model, from the internet to cloud computing. Tony Farnfield, CEO of BearingPoint, argues AI is different because it’s moving faster and touching nearly every project. “Very rarely do we do a project that doesn’t have some technology element to it,” he said. But integrating technology into every project is not the same as becoming a technology company.

Several leaders push back on the idea of a complete identity shift. Errol Gardner, EY’s global consulting head, told Business Insider that while tech drives half of EY’s business, the core proposition is unchanged. “What we do is move clients from state A to state B in a safer way… AI is a new tool in the toolbox.” Kate Smaje of McKinsey framed it as a shift in problem complexity, not job category. “The real shift… is that enterprise problems are now more interconnected.” The true consulting skill, they contend, is not coding, but orchestrating large-scale organizational change—navigating data governance, regulatory hurdles, and workforce resistance.

The employee experience reveals this nuanced reality. A Deloitte technology consultant with six years’ tenure told Business Insider that AI hasn’t caused an overnight revolution. Instead, it has slowly shifted the job “from creation to validation,” while raising expectations to deliver more with less. Louis-Charles Généreux, an associate partner at McKinsey, stated that every employee has become more technical than three years ago, but the client-facing, collaborative heart of the job endures. The core identity, as a UK-based Deloitte senior consultant put it, “remains rooted in adaptability.”

There are also tangible business risks in chasing the “tech company” label too fervently. Czerniawska of Source Global points to a pricing peril. Clients associate technology services with lower costs than premium strategic advice. If firms dilute their consulting brand, they risk eroding their price power. Her research also suggests client expectations may be tempering; the share who believe AI will have a significant impact on service delivery has fallen from 60% in 2024 to 40% more recently.

So, what does a consultant do in 2025? They are part strategist, part translator, and part systems integrator. They leverage AI agents to automate analysis but must still judge its output. They partner with OpenAI and Nvidia to build tools, but their value lies in applying those tools within the messy context of a specific business. The industry isn’t becoming Silicon Valley. It is building a new hybrid model where business acumen and technological implementation are fused. The winner won’t be the firm that declares itself the most “AI-native,” but the one that most seamlessly and credibly bridges the gap between the promise of technology and the practical realities of the corporate world. The consultant’s ultimate product is no longer just advice, nor just technology, but a viable path from one to the other.

• Consultants integrate AI into their work.
• The growth of tech services is rapid.
• Consulting firms are rebranding themselves.
• AI changes the daily tasks of consultants.
• Client expectations are shifting.
• There are risks in chasing the tech label.