AI is changing not only the way consulting work is carried out, but also how clients view these firms.
The market is still in a transitional phase: adoption is rapid, but the shift to tangible commercial impact hasn’t yet been realized everywhere. In a broad professional services survey by Thomson Reuters, 22% of organizations reported in 2025 that they were already actively using GenAI, compared to 12% a year earlier. At the same time, 95% expect GenAI to play a central role in their workflows within five years, while only 20% say their organization actually measures ROI on GenAI.
For consulting and digital transformation firms, this has fundamental implications. The value of the traditional “hourly billing” model comes under pressure as soon as clients expect AI to accelerate aspects of analysis, documentation, configuration, and delivery. That doesn’t mean demand for consultants is declining. On the contrary: Accenture finds that 98% of organizations view technology as the most important lever for reinvention, and 82% now cite generative AI as one of the key drivers of that process. Demand is therefore shifting from pure capacity to partners who can translate AI into a functioning operating model, governance, change management, and measurable business outcomes.
In M&A terms, this also shifts the investment profile of these companies. Buyers are focusing less on headcount and billability alone, and more on whether a platform consulting firm has built up its own IP, accelerators, industry-specific use cases, and a proven AI-enabled delivery model. This is not just a revenue issue, but also a margin and scalability issue. McKinsey predicts that by 2025, organizations will primarily report cost benefits from AI in software engineering, IT, and manufacturing, while the broad EBIT impact at the corporate level will remain limited. This suggests that the real leap in value lies primarily with companies that have already embedded AI operationally, rather than those that are merely using it experimentally.
There’s a second layer to consider: governance. In the same Thomson Reuters survey, 52% of respondents said their organization does not have a GenAI policy, and 64% said they had not received any training. For buyers and investors, this becomes a concrete due diligence issue. Consulting firms that use AI without clear frameworks for data, security, output control, and liability create not only opportunities but also risks.
We therefore expect that AI in consulting will not lead to a simple commoditization of work, but rather to a sharper divide between winners and laggards. The winners will be those firms that use AI to industrialize delivery without undermining the human aspect of transformation—change management, industry expertise, and executive advisory services. It is precisely these types of companies that will attract the most strategic and private-equity interest in the coming years. This conclusion is based on adoption rates, the limited current measurement of ROI, and the emphasis that major consulting firms place on AI as a driver of reinvention.
