Is AI here to take over the Consulting Industry?
- 180dcdrcblogs
- Sep 9, 2021
- 4 min read
“Altering the fundamentals is perhaps not by magic or chance, it is more by Artificial Intelligence now.”
The consulting industry unquestionably evolved over the years with a market cap of over $250 billion. With the involvement of machination like Artificial intelligence, the industry players are thriving steadily to become efficient technology partners and support the upend. But instead of delving headfirst into the uproar, we are attempting to navigate our readers through AI- a profound smart technology, and how it is dropping an impeccable impact on the finance and service industry. Given the decorated past of AI which has excelled in altering our methods fundamentally be it car parts in the manufacturing industry or a humanoid in the defense force, it is incredible to see AI becoming the master of all trades.
With more and more diversity and complexity penetrating into modern business models, the mechanization of several processes of consulting has transformed the industry in terms of using agile algorithms and design thinking to automate practices and end-to-end processes. Consulting giants through AI are excelling in the current regime by developing deeper insights that augment even human cognition, design systems that learn from data and experience to improve outcomes over time, leveraging robotic, intelligent, and autonomous capabilities to transform operations, and enhancing experience using robust algorithms that could predict, sense learn and move on its own; thus establishing its empire of sustained trust.
Most enterprises adopt new practices after a thorough cost-benefit analysis.
Since automation costs an arm and a leg, it is imperative to sift through the advantages of AI and how efficiently it can be incorporated into the sphere of consultancy.
First, and probably the most obvious, is increased proficiency. It saves the human effort that is involved in repetitive tasks such as manual invoicing; higher-value automated invoicing can be done with cent accuracy through technology.
The second benefit accrued is data collection. Since AI can handle and process a large amount of data more quickly and efficiently than a human, it can provide consultants a major competition when offering services to clients and enhance their ROIs, understand the sales channels and observe market behavior to provide the most effective strategies for advertising and resource allocation and many more in record time.
Additionally, AI also provides multi-layer security as these high-end models are capable of detecting fraud, unwarranted hacking, and unauthorized access which amasses dual benefits namely, lack of interruptions and protecting the client data.
Now think about this, there are seven billion businesses in the United States alone with a hundred and fourteen million people making routine decisions daily. So, Why not offer them Robo advice using machines to make it faster and cheaper than what only a few players like Mckinsey and Bain offer to large institutional companies?
The reason behind the contrary is that the introduction of AI in consulting cannot, unfortunately, mitigate all the predicaments entailed in consultancy.
One of the main disadvantages is the regular maintenance costs. Operational programs need to be re-configured and updated constantly to ensure smooth functioning. In the rare cases where the system completely breaks down, the cost of repairing is exponentially high and there is also the threat of precious data losses.
Furthermore, machine learning (ML) is a revolution in the field of AI, however, it has its limitations. Machines cannot adjust to the dynamic and ever-changing world and need constant inputs. Therefore, even though machines can store a large amount of data, it varies significantly from human intelligence. A human disadvantage is the lowered economic availability that a consultancy firm offers.
Additionally, if AI completely takes over, the lack of sensitivity, emotional and cognitive abilities that a human extends can lead to a lack of proper engagement and retainment with clients.
This shores us to an important question:
Will consultants be replaced by data scientists and robots?
Well in some form, yes but more challenges will keep germinating when AI would be shouldered with more variations in the consulting services and verticals. Admittedly there are a lot of things that machines do better than people, but there are again a lot of things that people do better than machines, it’s almost like a paradox. Homo Sapien consultants will still provide the hypothesis, refine the inputs and present the solutions to the client in a sustainable and impactful manner. However as Robo consultants are taking over the more analytical parts of the job, what remains important is the human component of the job, such as deeply understanding your client, their viewpoints, what goals they are trying to accomplish et cetera. That component of empathy and intent can only be facilitated by the consultants to their clients.
It could be predicted that in the coming time we might need fewer consultants and more data scientists aided by AI as competitive players to the consulting industry, but again what we should not forget that-
“The single most critical driver of value from AI is not algorithms, nor technology — it is the human in the equation”
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