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Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review

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How McKinsey Plans to Survive AI (and Reinvent Consulting)

Video Overview & Insights

How does a storied consulting firm reflect on its history while forging a path ahead in uncertain times? In this episode of HBR IdeaCast, McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels speaks with host Adi Ignatius about the controversies that have ignited change at the large consulting firm, how exactly they are reorganizing human talent in an age of AI, and what business models he thinks will be most successful as the industry shifts.

he seems like he is just saying "we are not actually sure"

— @orangeconsultant

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mckinsey is currently fighting legacy llms and correlation ais of the months past. wait till causal ai comes to eat your lunch and ask for dinners.

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I came here to practice listening skills, and nothing else lol..m

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How to talk about something you have no idea about, say nothing, and still get paid is the first snakeoil business model that will die

— @GustavoRam1234

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they will saty afloat

— @theronalddonald

More User Perspectives

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A big firm is committing financial crime and the ai is the scapegoat on the annual report to avoid future legal risks. Their outside auditor also mentioned they trust the firm's automatic system to mitigate the risks. Real case, happening right now.

@Kaylah-d6p
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Oh good, so we have many more decades and centuries of pumping dangerous addictive medications and simultaneously advising warring governments and destroying innovation to look forward to 🤮

@varund7
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Critical thinking around using the LLM based AI should always have the following questions as part of going forward:

Do you know the implications of AI on system level? Does it make the system really better or just local tasks faster ?

Did you take into account the theory of constraints?

Did you take into account cognitive debt production using aI?

@adalbertthomalla4887
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This just reinforced the thought I've been having for the last 3+ years that consulting firms are going to either become consulting firms using AI agents and specialized proprietary models that perform better than frontier AI companies' models at specific industry domains or cease operations completely.

@That-Guy-Rick
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I used to work for Johnson Controls. These guys absolutely destroyed the company. It took years to recover from them and my opinion they’re like a cancer that spreads.

@ermin7169
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Nobody needs so called “consultants” gathering information from your employees and then selling it to the CEO for millions of dollars

@reneg1017
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Monty Python 🤝 AI Agents

@0xgardo
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G

@patricsanyaolu
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Best in class buzzword bingo.

@JonTipple
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Adi is asking about bribery allegations 16:02 and Bob "I am glad you asked")) and then "it is a real soul searching and where we need to be more humble")) what a BS

@Hedgehogmustache
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So your solution to your companies unethical business practices is to be more selective on your customers, as if it was their fault? Maybe change the culture of chasing cash at all costs?

@brianblignaut5843
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They really know how to bluff, yet people still think they have the best solutions

@leanmyservice8589
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it's probably better if it doesn't survive.

@ashred9665
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So McKinsey was hired to 'co-create' the strategy and 'design' the transformation roadmap in my previous company's pivot to an integrated energy company from a conventional oil and gas company. 6 years later... We are moving back to being a conventional oil and company because their advice sucked. Yipiiiii

@tigerwong9845
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They were already a scam before AI, nothing new here. Their business model has always been to play golf with their CEO buddies, secure multi millions deal, produce nothing and just say that cost can be reduced by dividing timelines by two and firing random departments.

@RenaudRwemalika
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I thought my English is the problem! But this is next level nonsense.

@mazenalsharekh3125
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Worth adding: 'not knowing it all' lands easier in theory than in the room. The leaders we work with describe the harder skill as not collapsing into reassurance when the team senses they're unsure — sitting with the gap until a real answer emerges.

@Crackingitbywalnut
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Novel thinking is the organization
AI is not aspired
AI is not judmental
AI is linearthinking and not truely novel.

@88boysss
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It’s telling that when challenged on the Oxycontin scandal he starts waffling and humble bragging while saying nothing specific. Classic consulting - if there’s an issue, talk your way out of it, deflect, make yourself look better

@stingfpl
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No offense but this dude has no clue 😂. If this is the global MD of McK then the company is cooked. He has absolutely no idea what AI "actually" is

@KleinmeisterPang
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If we can justify firing enough people today we can pay all that sweet sweet freed up money to the AI giants and that’s how we get the CIO and CFO to agree. This is literally what oracle just did. They fired 30k people so they can build an air conditioned warehouse for computers.

@guyincognito1136
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They talk how they operate, bloated with vanity and waste

@tsantini13
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Technically you don’t advise you consult

@justinromanik5472
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Would MicKinsey be able to co-create with non-China auto legacy giants to help them reverse their negative trajectory and win in the new mobility electrification trend?

@hslai6712
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this guy has great charisma

@mconramp
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This is so true!!! We literally just hired Billy Richards Consulting to help us navigate ai for our real estate development firm and had such a great experience. They actually understand our industry, helped us choose the right tools, and handled training, which made the whole process smooth. Most AI vendors we spoke to were only focused on selling us software and didn’t understand our business and we didn’t have the time or resources to focus on it internally, so the consulting approach made sense for us too.

@buissnitch
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So it's worth paying them premium.

@superpowerforhire
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This is an interesting shift. As AI reshapes consulting, the real differentiator may no longer be access to information but the ability to bring clarity, judgment, and context to complex decisions. The role of leadership thinking becomes even more critical.

@ArchanaNShetty
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16:11 I can’t believe he said liberal arts , in a future of Ai ran world the artist is the only novel thinker

@Impulseartworks
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Even the biggest firms have to pivot. Respect your history, but don’t let it become an anchor in uncertain times.

@1ib_net
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really interesting take on the whole AI thing

@Amina21Norkobilov
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this is wild, never thought about consulting this way

@ABDALMTEN-i3k
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i'm curious how this will play out for them 🤔

@WidlinJeanBaptiste-g9l
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The co-creation angle makes sense. When we rolled out Nice Touch in our edit bays, the real value only showed up once the team shaped the workflow.

@NeoSenye-r8k
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wow i didn't know mckinsey was adapting like this

@GWTHUNDER07
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They survived all the evil they co created with purdue in the opioid crisis, thousands died thanks to their "co creation techniques and practices "just payed some money + the magic cocreation with questionable projects and clients, but you know they are now proudly celebrating 100 years of "best practices" 🎉

@KONSENTIDA
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Oh boy - this is worse than I expected

@DAS_92
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Let’s hope it doesn’t

@plasticbagprincess
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whole lotta nothing

@abdullahas7157
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How will the American economy go on without the most mid students from B-school selling PowerPoint slop at $250K a pop?

@tomcotter4299
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Mckinsey will still be needed after ai…1. to give corp execs a “story” so s to raise their total compensation to the stratosphere. 2. to make recommendations that are risky so that corp execs have someone to blame for failed actions. 3. to make recommendations that their boards would otherwise not accept, etc etc.

@M.B.O1O1
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So much talk without really saying something. They so cooked by ai

@catalingavrila-xb2ql
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The questions are very precise and pointed like any client typically seek answers for. The answers are essays that will require another consultant to interpret !

@ranganathanv5365