A consultant joke. One of them arrives home and says to their partner: “After several years prescribing to clients how to reduce costs through AI, my job has successfully concluded. They have reduced costs through AI and have fired me.” Without reaching these extremes or dark humor, this is the premonition hovering around one of the businesses that for decades has supplied companies with ideas and talent. Consulting firms have gone from being the endorsers of the technological revolution to finding that AI is turning their own business upside down. Major clients have started to tighten the screws and demand a share of the productivity brought by new tools, capable of completing much more work in less time. The sector does not talk about crisis, but about reinvention.
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What is at stake is part of the business lifeblood. According to the companies themselves, consulting firms employ nearly 300,000 people in Spain and generate more than 23 billion euros in revenue. Many senior executives of large corporations started there, forging a multifaceted vision that prepares them to work in any company. When they talk to young people, they often advise them to start there. However, AI is breaking part of the pulley system of the business world.
In recent months, news has followed about job cuts in consulting firms and increasing pressure from major clients. Capgemini closed a redundancy plan in Spain affecting 710 workers, and internationally there is a trickle of reports about departures in the Big Four, the four giants of the sector, which are KPMG, PwC, EY, and Deloitte. Investors have doubts about publicly traded technology consulting firms and have punished the shares of Accenture or Capgemini with drops of 30% so far this year. The thesis is that AI will reduce their value.
Consultants respond in the style of Mark Twain: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. So much so that, at least in Spain, sector revenues and employment are on the rise. José María Beneyto, president of the Spanish Association of Consulting Companies (AEC), takes the consultant joke with humor for now. “I would say a consultant has more opportunities than before, but they have to adapt,” he replies. From his point of view, “a new revolution” is taking place around AI in which “consulting will continue to be at the center.” “We are in a transformation and a redefinition of tasks,” but the new technology will force consultants to assume a more transversal and strategic role. “It’s not that consulting is declining, it’s that it will be more necessary,” he concludes.
Some Ibex companies expect to reduce consulting bills and internalize AI-related processes
However, no one denies the paradigm shift. Sources from a large Ibex company warn that they expect a reduction in fees now that consulting firms use more AI. At the same time, they say, there is a trend within the corporation itself to internalize what can be done with the new technology. “Logically, there are things that cannot be replaced, but the pressure is downward,” they add, referring to contracts.
Another Ibex company shares this view. Consulting firms will still be necessary, but “companies will be more demanding about the value they provide,” they state. “It will increasingly make less sense to pay for repetitive tasks or to produce information that the company itself can easily generate with AI.” In short, consulting firms must “review their model and demonstrate much better where they truly add value.”
A consultant from one of the Big Four explains that these days, in September, is traditionally when young people join companies. He barely notices differences compared to other years, but he is very aware of what is happening. It’s not that hourly rates are dropping, but the number of hours assigned to each project is. What used to be resolved in a couple of weeks is now ready in a morning. And clients have noticed, so they push to buy fewer consulting hours. However, each type of consultant costs a certain number of hours, and the hours cut correspond to the less valuable profiles. Bad news for juniors. Another detail: the hours of the technology consultant are cheaper than those of market or strategy consultants.
From the firm McKinsey, they provide statements from their global head, Bob Sternfels, who refutes the bad omens and says that “AI could mean a golden age for consulting firms.” That said, professionals dedicated to making calculations and charts are over. “When technology evolves, the best people move towards the most complicated problems. That’s why we are hiring more consultants who work directly with clients, with a 20% increase this year, most of them in entry-level positions,” the executive assures.
Sector firms take on the challenge and say they will be “at the center” of the new “revolution”
The word reskilling is in fashion. Reinventing oneself. After all, as a professional in the field says, “consulting firms are the temp agencies of large companies.” KPMG indicates that in the coming years they will increase hiring by 58% of profiles that combine technological skills and functions mixing training in Business Administration, Law, or Economics with data analysis. This Big Four already has 600 employees driving change in every corner of the firm. They are known as ninjas. Another source says that for now there are no specific AI training programs, despite strong demand. In technology consulting firms, engineers who often self-train to stay up to date are highly valued.
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“We do not see AI as a threat, but as a means that opens up a whole range of business opportunities,” says a spokesperson from another Big Four, PwC. AI is an “enhancer” of services that allows the firm to “differentiate itself.” They cite several expressions that mark the new playing field: “added value,” “critical thinking,” “judgment,” “trust,” and “management capacity.” These are the weapons of the new consultant.
Contrary to press headlines, the big consulting firms continue hiring staff. It is a response compatible with the underlying threat. From a technology firm, one of its consultants explains that two trends are occurring. On one hand, there is an “optimization expectation” in which “clients and consultants expect costs to be reduced.” On the other, “there are many AI implementation projects,” which is the term around which everything revolves. “Some clients demand cost reductions. If you don’t do it, someone else will,” he adds.
There are at least four other factors to keep track of. The first is that AI is also opening opportunities for consulting firms in other company processes, ranging from customer service to high value-added areas. “It allows dedicating more resources to expanding our business to new company segments and creating new business lines in areas such as training or energy transition,” sources from Accenture indicate. The company has undertaken multi-billion investments in AI, opened the Agentic AI Innovation Hub in Barcelona, and signed agreements with giants like Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
McKinsey’s global head believes “AI could mean a golden age for consultants”
The second factor is that companies want to develop their own AI capabilities, thus poaching talent from consulting firms, which in turn hire more people. The third is that strategic consulting firms are acquiring technological capabilities while technology consulting firms are acquiring strategic capabilities. A convergence of models. The fourth, a result of the previous, is an increase in acquisitions among consulting firms themselves. The trend is toward concentration. DBK Informa estimates that the ten largest consulting firms hold 56% of the Spanish market.
Will there be acquisitions of smaller consulting firms? “The big fish kills what it tries to buy,” says Enrique Galván, CEO and founder of the consulting firm Qaracter. The company is twenty years old and employs about 1,000 people. It specializes in banking and insurance, with niche elements in areas like investments. “The consulting firms threatened by AI are general-purpose ones, but we are special-purpose and technology helps us scale the result,” he points out. According to him, big firms will find it difficult to undertake a rapid restructuring due to economic and reputational costs. The big debate now is about the intellectual property of innovations shared with clients and also about “how to share the extra value generated.” Who takes the profits from greater productivity.
The Big Four are hiring profiles that mix Law or Economics with data analysis
Meanwhile, smaller consulting firms feel encouraged by the enormous scale AI can provide them. Some even dare to found new firms. This is the case of Víctor Ausín and Ángel Gavilán, two former heavyweights from the Ministry of Economy and the Bank of Spain, who have created aimTFP Economic Intelligence. Their presentation letter not only includes the names of two prestigious professionals but also a strong commitment to AI. Ausín says it is an essential part of the bet: “The barrier to entry is lowered and it is easier to compete with the big players.” “Before there was more manual work and now the added value is in decisions,” he points out. “Our model looks more like an obelisk than a pyramid, where we remove the entire base at the bottom,” he adds.
Whether obelisks or pyramids, consulting firms notice how clients exert pressure on the structure. Margins have been squeezed in a trend that began before the AI boom. According to sector data, if in 2012 the average consulting revenue per employee was 77,000 euros, the figure has not evolved since then.
What will happen to junior workers? Don’t lose heart. It is true that they are the most “automatable,” but at the same time newcomers arrive with a more open mindset towards AI and the acclimation process to the company, known as onboarding, is accelerating with the new technology, the sector explains. Juniors can now reach senior level faster. Also, consulting firms themselves know that giving up on young people is suicide. “We have to keep putting people on the wheel,” says a consultant with many flight hours. There is hope.
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