It’s not just tech companies that are looking to automate tech roles — consulting companies are using AI in a big way too.
McKinsey has eliminated 200 global tech roles as it accelerates the use of AI to automate internal functions, Bloomberg reports. McKinsey could pursue additional reductions in support functions over the next 2 years as it expands AI deployment and reviews tasks which can be transitioned to AI systems.
“AI is enabling unprecedented levels of opportunity and impact for us and our clients,” a McKinsey spokesperson said. “We are continually working to make our professional support functions more efficient and effective, including by taking advantage of AI.”
“We are continuing to add folks who are client deployed. We will upskill folks more, we will probably have fewer in non-client-deployed areas, but they will be leveraged by today’s technology and AI,” McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels had earlier said.
McKinsey has been proactive about integrating AI into its workflows. All the way back in 2023, it had built an AI chatbot named Lilli which by 2025 was being used by 70% of employees through 500k queries a month. McKinsey employees enter their requests into Lilli, which aggregates the key points, identifies five to seven relevant internal content pieces, and points users to appropriate experts within the firm. Users can opt to have queries answered by the firm’s internal knowledge repository or external sources. Lilli can also parse Powerpoint files, where most of the company’s knowledge base resides. McKinsey consultants use the the chatbot for research, summarizing documents, analyzing data, and brainstorming. McKinsey says that employees saved 30% of their time using Lilli, and saw a 20% improvement in content quality and accuracy. Lilli isn’t the only AI tool that McKinsey has employed — it also has an AI agent named Tone of Voice that fixes the writing in the company’s reports to make it align with the company’s writing style.
And it’s innovations like these that are enabling companies to cut down on their workforces. A report from MIT has said that 11.7% of US job tasks can now be performed by AI. And while it could take a while for these effects to percolate through the economy, prominent companies are already looking to make efficiency gains over their competitors by pruning their workforces with the help of AI.