Live forever? Not on yesterday’s model.
McKinsey & Company is rebuilding its own playbook – not just selling transformation, but living it.
In the AI era, consulting is becoming a test case for how far a knowledge industry must evolve to stay credible, competitive, and client-relevant.
McKinsey & Company is in the middle of a transformation that mirrors the advice it’s been giving clients for decades: move fast, build around technology, and challenge your own operating model before someone else does it for you.
This time, the change is internal—and existential.
The Wall Street Journal’s recent feature reveals how deeply AI is now embedded in McKinsey’s own delivery model.
For the rest of the industry, this should be a wake-up call. Not just because McKinsey is moving, but because the way it’s moving shows where consulting is headed next.
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What’s Happening Inside McKinsey?
The numbers are hard to ignore:
→ 12,000 AI agents deployed across the firm, assisting with research, slide production, note-taking, and logic checks
→ 40% of revenue now linked to AI and tech-related advisory work
→ Team sizes on client projects reduced from 15+ to 4, with automation replacing junior layers
→ 25% of work now structured as outcomes-based, not just billed time
Bob Sternfels, the firm’s Global Managing Partner, put it plainly:
“We’re going to continue to hire, but we’re also going to continue to build agents.”
Kate Smaje, who leads McKinsey’s internal AI transformation, framed it even more starkly:
“Do I think this is existential for our profession? Yes, I do. But I think it’s an existential good for us.”
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Why It Matters for the Consulting Industry
McKinsey is not alone in this. But it is ahead of most.
Consulting has become one of the clearest test cases for how AI is reshaping white-collar value chains. And the old model – one manager, 10+ juniors, slide decks, and a retainer – is looking increasingly outdated.
As Oliver Wyman’s CEO Nick Studer put it:
“The age of arrogance of the management consultant is over now.”
Clients are no longer content with advice alone. They want execution, co-creation, and visible outcomes. That’s forcing firms to shift their revenue models, rebuild their teams, and rethink what they hire for.
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Hiring Signals Are Already Shifting
From what we’re seeing across our network in the UK and DACH, three themes are emerging:
AI makes average disposable: Rote junior work is being automated. Fast-follow frameworks are being commoditised. Clients won’t pay premium fees for average output anymore.
Experience is becoming the real premium: Partners with pattern recognition, judgement, and leadership maturity are more valuable than ever—especially when they can work fluently alongside tech.
Learning velocity now matters as much as pedigree: As Sternfels noted, firms need people who can “learn over a career at a rate you and I have never seen.” The most successful consultants will be those who grow with the tools—not those who try to outpace them.
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Conclusion: AI Won’t Kill Consulting. But It Will Kill Complacency.
Consulting’s not going away.
But the margin for mediocrity has collapsed.
Enough so, to warrant a mid-week post in early August.
The firms that thrive won’t just use AI – they’ll build around it.
Reinvention isn’t optional anymore. It’s the price of staying in the game.
And with a quiet nod to an epic night at Wembley:
“Don’t look back in anger” if you miss this boat.
This post comments on:
The Wall Street Journal: AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’
2-August 2025
Ben Appleton is the founder of Strat-Bridge, a specialist executive search partner to the strategy consulting industry. He works with global consulting firms and senior leaders across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond — helping them build capability at the Partner and Director level.
