2 months ago
The US leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers has warned that partners who do not get to grips pinch AI person nary early astatine nan consulting firm.
Paul Griggs said elder unit who were not “paranoid astir being AI-first” would astir apt beryllium replaced by others who were fresh to clasp nan technology.
“I don’t deliberation anyone gets a free walk here. Anyone,” Griggs told nan Financial Times.
An worker who thinks they person nan “opportunity to opt out” of AI is “not going to beryllium present that long”, Griggs added.
Consulting is 1 of galore white-collar industries that experts judge are in nan firing line of advances successful AI, owing to nan technology’s expertise to automate activity related to specified tasks arsenic accounting, investigation and analysing business problems.
However, information besides shows that large consulting groups for illustration PwC, Accenture and McKinsey are benefiting from clients seeking thief successful implementing AI crossed their businesses. K2 Consulting Research, which monitors nan industry, has said world consulting grew 5.5% successful 2025, a doubling of nan erstwhile year’s maturation rate.
Griggs said PwC’s employment strategy had changed arsenic AI altered its moving practices, but nan patient remained “a nett acquirer of talent astatine this constituent of time”.
“Am I recruiting nan aforesaid number of accountants and accepted consultants vis-a-vis engineers, connected a proportionate basis, that I was 3 years ago? No,” he said.
Griggs added that PwC was hiring much information specialists. Last twelvemonth nan patient trim unit numbers by 5,600, taking its number of world labor to less than 365,000.
Griggs told nan FT that PwC would alteration immoderate taxation and consulting services into AI-powered automated devices that could beryllium paid for pinch an yearly subscription. Traditionally, consultancies measure clients based connected nan number of hours worked connected their projects. The caller taxation and consulting devices could beryllium accessed “without a PwC personification successful nan loop”, Griggs said.
PwC is launching “PwC One”, an AI level that offers six automated services for clients, including an “anomaly detector” that tin observe flaws successful a company’s sustainability data.
Griggs said nan move to automation could consequence successful caller pricing models for nan manufacture and broaden nan marketplace for services offered by nan large 4 consulting and accounting firms: PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG.
“Over time, it will move much and much of our activity to outcomes pricing, which I judge our clients will readily judge because, ultimately, nan only point our clients attraction astir is nan result delivered,” he said.
