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As an industry, management consulting is primed to take the lead in AI adoption. Our report, Setting the Pace: How Management Consultants are Leading the GenAI Revolution shows that a staggering 80% of management consultants are already embracing these tools in their daily work. But it’s not enough to embrace the current technology—consultants need to keep an eye on the future.
At LexisNexis, we understand how important it is for management consultants to keep pace with the rapidly changing innovation of AI technology. By exploring the current state of genAI adoption in management consulting, we can dig deeper into what’s possible when AI is deeply and ethically embedded into professional workflows. In this article, we break down what the Setting the Pace report has to say about the following:
Ever since generative AI began to take over the conversation about the future of work, consulting firms have been at the forefront of the change. Having moved far past the experimentation stage, management consultants are demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of generative AI’s potential to transform the world of professional services.
At the same time, there is a general understanding that keeping up with innovation is not enough. The technology needs to be adopted in ways that are ethical and responsible.
Our research provided us a look into three key insights that are indicative of the current state of the industry.
MORE: Why Consulting Firms Must Adapt or Risk Falling Behind
Technology has always been an important part of management consulting because creativity is necessary to provide clients with the support they need to lead their fields.
In fact, 92% of survey respondents agree that technology is very important to their organization’s success. This includes 91% of respondents who are open to using generative AI in their daily workflows, particularly to take care of data entry or other tedious tasks. With a workforce that is eager to incorporate AI into their processes, consulting firms have a great opportunity to push the boundaries on what is possible for their organization.
Many consulting leaders have recognized this enthusiasm, leading to more investment in AI tools than other sectors. Compared to other sectors, 42% of management consultants have received some advanced instruction in generative AI while that number is just 15% in other sectors. This training allows individuals to experience how AI tools can facilitate job performance as opposed to seeing AI as a replacement or a threat, leading to greater productivity, more opportunities for innovation, and higher profitability.
The success and excitement for AI implementation in management consulting can serve as a model for other industries. In many cases, the workforce is more primed for the incorporation of new technology than leadership. It is therefore up to company leaders to capitalize on this energy and provide the training and resources to shepherd their teams into the next wave of work.
Chief among the reasons for continued enthusiasm among management consultants is the time savings and efficiency that come with using generative AI.
On average, 56% of management consultants see 3-4 hours of daily time savings by using AI, allowing for a shift in how professionals can allocate their time. This isn’t just about incremental efficiency. It’s a structural shift in how value is created and delivered and consulting firms must redesign delivery models to capitalize on it. By opening up time previously dedicated to routine tasks, consultants have time to focus on specific skill development, clearing the way for higher-level, creative work--and thus greater job satisfaction.
Other industries can learn from this example by investing in implementation and training of AI tools to further their productivity and increase the job satisfaction of the workforce.
Despite the increased training—70% management consulting firms are conducting training at least quarterly—management consultants maintain a vigilant stance toward the risks associated with AI integration. This is particularly true with issues of transparency, data security, and ethics.
With 58% of respondents citing privacy and security issues as a key barrier to AI adoption, there is a necessity for company leaders to take measures to appease these concerns. This goes beyond basic AI training. To ensure continued trust with both clients and employees, leaders need to invest in solutions that prioritize data security while maximizing efficiency.
Furthermore, the awareness and concerns around increasing dependence on AI tools require the implementation of safeguards, training staff to use the technology as an aid and not a replacement.
AI technology is evolving rapidly, providing even more opportunities to optimize the work of management consultants. Taking the current landscape into consideration, let’s dive into what the next wave of generative AI could bring.
Employees recognize that they need to develop new capabilities to keep pace with new technological advancements (92% of respondents rate this as a high priority). Within the next two years, AI fluency will become as essential to management consulting as data literacy and Excel once were. Partners who fail to embed AI capabilities/training into their teams risk falling behind the competition and losing out on opportunities.
With this fluency as a baseline competency, next-generation AI-training will need to integrate the technology with human judgement to further enhance human work. Enabling consultants to work effectively with AI-generated insights while maintaining critical oversight will be essential to the success of organizations moving forward, allowing for AI to be used as a tool to aid in strategic decision making.
Furthermore, with the proper AI-training, the use of AI can lead to the democratization of opportunity. For example, a basic understanding of how to use generative AI for data analysis and interpretation can open the door for workers who excel in creative thinking and ingenuity to enter fields that would have been inaccessible without the more analytical aptitude.
Combine this with the 3-4 hours saved per day by using AI, and the opportunities are endless. Rather than reducing headcount or cutting costs, the most successful consultancies will use these time savings and the broader perspectives from a diverse workforce to deepen insight quality and expand unique and creative solutions for clients. By investing in robust training, innovative leaders can blaze the trail for the next generation of management consulting.
The lack of standardization across the industry will need to be addressed to build confidence across employees and clients. One survey respondent noted, “I think a major issue will be inconsistent application/enforcement/policies across companies, industries, etc. If everyone handles it differently, how will we know what the standard is?”
Inconsistency in AI policy and usage will be a reputational risk. Clients will begin demanding transparency not just in deliverables, but in how firms use AI to arrive at them. The firms that create internal AI governance now will set the standard for ethical incorporation of AI and have an advantage over those that lag behind.
Not only should organizations conduct regular audits and provide better transparency of limitations of genAI tools, but it is also imperative that organizations and industries establish consistent standards to build reliability in AI implementation.
This begins with using quality data that is responsibly embedded into platforms.
As generative AI continues to evolve, the industry is poised to see the integration of specialized AI platforms over the use of catch-all large models. This is where Nexis+ AI is leading the next wave of AI adoption.
The powerful proprietary search technology of Nexis+ AI further accelerates research and decisioning intelligence functions by enabling conversation-based searching across the platform. This allows researchers to accelerate routine tasks, including data discovery, document analysis, report synthesis, and news summarization, backed by the industry’s largest collection of genAI-approved news datasets*.
Conversational search allows Nexis+ AI users to engage with our industry-leading corporate data and global news content in ways that were never possible before, rapidly delivering valuable business insights from trusted sources that lead to faster business decisioning and increased market competitiveness. Thoughtful design that respects the integrity of publisher and user data helps ensure professional service providers can adopt AI confidently, while practically improving their business development, client projects, competitive intelligence, and other core firm functions.
It all comes back to the humans using the tools. Integrating AI necessitates employee oversight while streamlining the time it takes to perform routine tasks. We believe the future of management consulting and professional services relies on this combination between powerful technology and employee innovation and creativity. To move from experimentation to enterprise-wide advantage, consulting firms need AI tools that are both powerful and principled. Consulting firms need Nexis+ AI.
To take a deeper look at how generative AI is shaping management consulting, download our “Setting the Pace” report now.
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