Every once in a while, a new technology comes along that has the power to completely transform the way humans work and live. We are living through such an age of revolution now, as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning permeate all aspects of our information landscape.
AI offers particular power for those in the consulting industry—when used correctly. As a seasoned consultant, interim executive, and PhD-holder in AI, I am passionate about technology and transformation. Today, I’ll share actionable advice and real tactics for consultants to make the most of AI in today’s environment.
Artificial Intelligence - A Transformative Force in Consulting
According to research published in 2022 by McKinsey & Co, the use of AI has more than doubled in the past 5 years, with signs that those numbers will increase dramatically. In 2017, around 20% of firms were using some form of AI, whereas 50% claimed to use AI by the end of 2022. The level of investment in AI has also risen from 40% in 2018, to 52% in 2022. In short: AI is here to stay and is likely to become an essential tool for forward-thinking consultants, while those who haven’t become proficient in these technologies are likely to be left behind.
In the face of constantly evolving AI technologies, consultants are urged to embrace the transformations, cultivate essential AI skills and knowledge, and tailor their approaches to ensure competitiveness within an industry that is continually changing.
Ultimately, the infusion of AI into consulting promises to enrich the experiences of consultants and their clients, leading to more impactful and efficient consulting solutions.
The Top Tasks for Using AI
What does it mean to “embrace the AI transformation”, though? What practical ways can consultants leverage AI to deliver better results? In my experience, there are three main areas where AI can be intelligently applied to the consulting role.
Generally speaking, there needs to be a balance between the best of the human mind and the machine capabilities currently available. Always begin with your own knowledge, expertise, and instinct, and then use AI as a tool to further your exploration or automate necessary work. In particular, I suggest using AI tools for the following:
- Productivity tasks - In this category are things like administrative items or non-urgent processes that can be automated. The idea is to streamline and automate the small parts of a project that make up the whole, generally making a consultant faster, more reliable, and more thorough.
- Creative tasks - As AI tools advance in creativity, there is space to leverage them to create graphics or written content that is perfectly tailored to your client’s needs. Things like designing an image or writing brief material for a PowerPoint presentation would fall under this umbrella.
- Data and documents - AI is incredibly useful for managing linguistic tasks, including writing and wordsmithing. If you have some proprietary knowledge, or a data set that you want to present, you can use AI to improve the verbiage or format. The actual content comes from you, but you can use various AI tools to enhance the way that you execute and share that content.
I explore more specifics on how to make the most of these disruptive technologies in this article on ChatGPT and generative AI. It’s equally important to know when not to use AI. While it’s tempting to turn to AI for much of your daily work, that won’t necessarily lead to the strongest deliverables for your client.
Remember the old adage “garbage in, garbage out”. Essentially, the quality of your AI results is dependent on not only your own inputs but the data available across learning algorithms. Inputs into AI tools are increasingly important to understand, and without the correct prompts, you cannot rely on AI alone for accurate information. Idea generation should come from the consultant alone to maintain the most accuracy and integrity. When in doubt, begin with your own mind and end with the AI tools.
The Future: Consulting in the Age of AI
Realistically, AI is relevant across almost all consulting fields, and can help with everything from automating tasks to streamlining communications and mining data. In my view, this emerging technology is likely to become a tool that empowers consultants but also sets top talent apart.
The most effective consultants will become even smarter and more productive because they will take the time to understand AI tools and how to properly use them. The next tier of consultants will be able to hone their skills to improve research, writing, and client-facing functions. This will make them even more impactful consultants overall. The lower-level consultants who aren’t as effective will become less so. The pace of AI and the functions that it supports are evolving so quickly that without a proactive effort to keep up on these skills, individuals can quickly become less competitive.
Along with the typical must-have capabilities for consultants in the digital age, there are three main skills that I consider essential moving forward in the era of AI.
- System-level thinking - This is the ability to see the bigger picture for your clients. Though they may approach you for one specific challenge, it’s usually not a stand-alone issue - you need to be able to see the potential bigger problems to address.
- Creative problem solving - Creativity doesn’t always come naturally to analytical consultants, but AI tools can help you generate new ideas for solving problems and coming up with “out of the box” solutions.
- Complex decision-making - We rarely have complete information when it comes to making decisions, and there is no such thing as “perfect information” anyway. It’s essential to be able to help your client to make decisions within the context of the information available. Tools are most helpful in this scenario for distilling information, such as presenting data in a neat PowerPoint document for faster absorption.
Finally, I recommend using generative AI tools to improve your knowledge base and to upskill. Along with using a search engine that will return the top few links for an inquiry, you can use an AI tool that will deliver a summary along with thousands of links that can help. From there, you can be conversational with an AI tool and dig deeper into the areas of interest or ask more specific questions, without having to click on several links and go down rabbit holes. However, make sure that your research is thorough because, as mentioned, you shouldn’t treat a tool as an absolute authority on any topic.
Overall, AI tools provide an immense opportunity for consultants to bring a new level of efficiency and quality to their clients. Consultants who embrace this new landscape will set themselves apart with improved client experiences and increased operational efficiency. Those who do not will find themselves lapsed by more forward-thinking peers.