After ChatGPT got here out in 2022, the advertising crew at Reckitt Benckiser, which makes Lysol and Mucinex, was satisfied that new synthetic intelligence expertise may assist its enterprise. However the crew was unsure how, so it turned to Boston Consulting Group for assist.
Reckitt’s request was considered one of lots of that Boston Consulting Group acquired final yr. It now earns a fifth of its income — from zero simply two years in the past — by work associated to AI.
“There’s a real thirst to determine what are the implications for his or her companies,” mentioned Vladimir Lukic, Boston Consulting Group’s managing director for expertise.
The subsequent large increase in tech is a long-awaited present for wonky consultants. From Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co. to IBM and Accenture, gross sales are rising and hiring is on the rise as a result of firms are in determined want of expertise Sherpas who will help them work out what generative AI means and the way it will help their companies.
Whereas the tech business is casting about for methods to become profitable off generative AI, the consultants have begun cashing in.
IBM, which has 160,000 consultants, has secured greater than $1 billion in gross sales commitments associated to generative AI for consulting work and its watsonx system, which can be utilized to construct and preserve AI fashions. Accenture, which offers consulting and expertise providers, booked $300 million in gross sales final yr. About 40% of McKinsey’s enterprise this yr can be generative AI associated, and KPMG Worldwide, which has a worldwide advisory division, went from making no cash a yr in the past from generative-AI-related work to focusing on greater than $650 million in U.S. enterprise alternatives tied to the expertise over the previous six months.
The demand for tech-related recommendation remembers the business’s dot-com increase. Companies stampeded consultants with requests for counsel within the Nineties. From 1992 to 2000, gross sales for Sapient, a digital consulting agency, went from $950,000 to $503 million. Subsequent expertise shifts just like the migration to cell and cloud computing have been much less hurried, mentioned Nigel Vaz, CEO of the agency, which is now generally known as Publicis Sapient.
“Within the mid-’90s, CEOs would say, ‘I don’t know what a web site is or what it may do for my enterprise, however I want it,’” Vaz mentioned. “That is comparable. Corporations are saying, ‘Don’t inform me what to construct. Inform me what you’ll be able to construct.’”
Consulting corporations have been scrambling to point out what they’ll do. In Might, Boston Consulting Group hosted a one-day convention at a Boston conference heart the place it arrange demonstration cubicles for OpenAI, Anthropic and different AI tech leaders. It additionally demonstrated a few of its personal AI work in robotics and programming.
Generative AI gross sales are serving to the business discover progress after a postpandemic lull. The administration consulting business in the US is predicted to gather $392.2 billion in gross sales this yr, up 2% from a yr in the past, in accordance with IBISWorld, a analysis agency.
The work that consultants have been enlisted to do varies from enterprise to enterprise. Some consultancies are advising firms on regulatory compliance as areas just like the European Union cross legal guidelines regulating synthetic intelligence. Others are drawing up plans for AI buyer assist programs or creating guardrails to forestall AI programs from making errors.
For companies, the outcomes have been combined. Generative AI is vulnerable to giving individuals incorrect, irrelevant or nonsensical info, generally known as hallucinations. It’s troublesome to make sure that it offers correct info. It may also be slower to reply than an individual, which might confuse prospects about whether or not their questions can be answered.
IBM, which has a $20 billion consulting enterprise, bumped into a few of these points on its work with McDonald’s. The businesses developed an AI-powered voice system to take drive-through orders. However after prospects reported that the system made errors, like including 9 iced teas to an order as a substitute of the one Food regimen Coke requested, McDonald’s ended the challenge.
McDonald’s mentioned it remained dedicated to a way forward for digital ordering and would consider various programs. IBM mentioned it was working with McDonald’s on different initiatives and was in discussions with different restaurant chains about utilizing its voice-activated AI.
Different applications from IBM have proven extra promise. The corporate labored with Dun & Bradstreet, a enterprise knowledge supplier, to develop a generative AI system to investigate and supply recommendation on deciding on suppliers. The device, known as Ask Procurement, will permit staff to conduct detailed searches with particular parameters. For instance, it may discover reminiscence chip suppliers which are minority owned and mechanically create a request for proposals for them.
Gary Kotovets, chief knowledge and analytics officer at Dun & Bradstreet, mentioned his crew of 30 individuals wanted IBM’s assist to construct the system. To reassure prospects that the solutions that Ask Procurement offers are correct, he insisted that prospects have the ability to hint each reply to an authentic supply.
“Hallucinations are an actual concern and in some instances a perceived concern,” Kotovets mentioned. “It’s a must to overcome each and persuade the consumer it’s not hallucinating.”
Over seven weeks this yr, McKinsey’s AI group, QuantumBlack, constructed a customer support chatbot for ING Financial institution, with guardrails to forestall it from providing mortgage or funding recommendation.
As a result of the viability of the chatbot was unsure and McKinsey had restricted expertise with the comparatively new expertise, the agency did the work as a “joint experiment” underneath its contract with ING, mentioned Bahadir Yilmaz, chief analytics officer at ING. The financial institution paid McKinsey for the work, however Yilmaz mentioned that many consultants have been prepared to do speculative work with generative AI with out pay as a result of they needed to exhibit what they might do with the brand new expertise.
The challenge has been labor intensive. When ING’s chatbot gave incorrect info throughout its growth, McKinsey and ING needed to establish the trigger. They traced the issue again to points like outdated web sites, mentioned Rodney Zemmel, a senior accomplice at McKinsey engaged on expertise.
The chatbot now handles 200 of 5,000 buyer inquiries day by day. ING has individuals overview each dialog to ensure the system doesn’t use discriminatory or dangerous language or hallucinate.
“The distinction between ChatGPT and our chatbot is our chatbot can’t be unsuitable,” Yilmaz mentioned. “Now we have to be secure with the system we’re constructing, however we’re shut.”
Over a four-month interval this yr, Reckitt labored with Boston Consulting Group to develop an AI platform that might create native ads in numerous languages and codecs. With the push of a button, the system can flip a industrial about End dishwashing detergent from English into Spanish.
Reckitt’s AI advertising system, which is being examined, could make creating native adverts 30% sooner, saving the corporate time and sparing it from some tedious work, mentioned Becky Verano, vp of worldwide creativity and capabilities at Reckitt.
As a result of the expertise is so new, Verano mentioned, the crew is studying and adjusting its work as new tech firms launch updates to the picture and language fashions. She credited Boston Consulting Group with bringing construction to that chaos.
“You’re consistently having to maneuver to the newest traits, to the latest findings, and studying every time how the instruments reply,” she mentioned. “There’s not a precise science to it.”
This text initially appeared in The New York Instances.
Get extra enterprise information by signing up for our Economic system Now e-newsletter.
