The Influence of Artificial Intelligence on The Consulting Industry

This paper aims at understanding the link between Artificial Intelligence and the Consulting sector. We study two complementary views: The way consulting firms are using AI in their internal processes and the way they are implementing AI in their clients’ companies. To conduct this study, we first theoretically define the two concepts, AI and Consulting. We describe their history, their definition, their advantages and negative points. Then, we make a study following an exploration method. We use qualitative data collected through seven interviews. We conducted one in an AI specialized firm and the others in consulting companies from different sizes. For the analysis, we divide consulting companies in three groups depending on their size. We deeply detail the major outcomes of the interviews before going to the conclusion. We come to the conclusion that AI is already used in consulting companies but less than expected. It means that, for large companies, AI is omnipresent in their solutions and starts to be internally developed. However, for smaller firms, it is still an unreachable concept that is not the focus, at least for now. Indeed, Artificial Intelligence does not bring a sufficient ROI for them. We also discover that AI will not destroy jobs but, instead, create new ones asking for a complementarity between the human and the machine. Finally, we highlight some challenges consulting firms need to face while implementing AI. These are, for instance, the resistance and reluctance to change or the legislation. Along the paper, the reader needs to keep in mind that the vision adopted is broad, as it is one of the first studies on the subject, and that the scope of our research is, inevitably, limited. We propose avenues for further researches at the end of the paper.