McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte’s New Competition Is Fast and Driven by AI

Two units of gamers have lengthy dominated the consulting world.

There may be MBB, which is McKinsey & Firm, Bain & Firm, and Boston Consulting Group. After which there may be the Big Four: PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Younger.

Now, a brand new wave of AI-driven startups is difficult that dominance, making an attempt to make consulting companies extra accessible.

Lots of the founders of those new companies come from the normal consulting realm. They advised Enterprise Insider their experiences not solely give them marketable expertise however have additionally helped them determine new alternatives within the trade.

They’re boutique companies. They’re much smaller than the established ones, typically run by groups starting from only a few individuals to some hundred. They’re additionally extra specialised, specializing in areas like pricing technique, price discount, or refining slide decks.

And, importantly, they’re all in on AI.

Lots of them mentioned their strategies assist them cut back old-school forms, provide extra aggressive charges, and make the human facet of consulting work simpler.

Listed below are the boutique companies that, to various levels, are difficult the traditional consulting mannequin.

Xavier AI

Xavier AI describes itself because the world’s first AI technique marketing consultant.

In response to Joao Filipe, cofounder of Xavier and a former McKinsey marketing consultant, the Xavier AI chatbot can present clear, actionable enterprise information and deliverables, like a 60-page marketing strategy, a gross sales presentation, or an in depth advertising technique.

Filipe mentioned Xavier AI has its personal proprietary reasoning engine that’s tailored for enterprise use circumstances and may present detailed sources with out the hallucination you would possibly discover with different chatbots. He mentioned Xavier can present each technique suggestions and actionable plans for implementation.

“99.9% of companies might actually by no means afford McKinsey or any of the MBBs,” Filipe advised BI. “We created Xavier AI in order that anybody might have the facility of a consulting agency at their arms once they want it.”

Xavier AI formally launched in April, however Filipe mentioned he is been piloting it with completely different shoppers, together with a world financial institution utilizing it to analysis potential shoppers and higher perceive their wants.

Since its launch, Filipe says enterprise has been booming. He mentioned the corporate’s income has doubled month over month, and he expects that development to proceed via the remainder of 2025.

NextStrat

Nexstrat.ai positions its product as a multifunctional agent that may automate lots of the typical duties of a marketing consultant.

Nexstrat’s cofounder and CEO, Arda Ecevit, who spent years at Bain & Firm and Deloitte earlier than founding the corporate in 2024, mentioned the platform mirrors the “hypothesis-based downside fixing” sometimes utilized by consulting companies.

Behind the scenes, the platform leverages a number of brokers to meet the capabilities of a challenge supervisor, a chief technique officer, and an AI advisor, to assist groups make higher selections and resolve enterprise points, Ecevit advised Enterprise Insider.

Ecevit mentioned the platform has already labored with some main firms, together with some among the many Fortune 500, and even some main consulting companies, which he mentioned have been testing his agency’s know-how on issues like information evaluation, analysis, and motion planning.

Consulting IQ

Consulting IQ was born out of the pandemic as an antidote to the variety of small and midsize companies failing.

“We noticed so many small and midsize companies collapsing for causes past their management,” Diego Medone, the founder and CEO of Consulting IQ, advised Enterprise Insider.

There are an estimated 400 million firms around the globe, 99% of which belong within the micro, small, or midsize class, Medone mentioned. However, he mentioned, 65% of small and midsize companies fade away earlier than yr 5.

“That is 260 million firms worldwide,” he mentioned.

Medone, a longtime administration marketing consultant who rose to accomplice at KPMG, started conducting analysis.

He mentioned he and his group of former McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants performed 10,000 interviews with small and midsize firms in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific. The intention was to study firsthand from enterprise homeowners the challenges and dangers they face every day.

They used that info to formally launch Consulting IQ in 2024. The platform positions itself as an AI-powered boutique marketing consultant devoted to the wants of small and medium-sized companies.

As soon as a person registers on the platform, they supply a couple of fundamental particulars about their enterprise — who they’re, the place they function, and their challenges. Then they will see an inventory of over 5,000 preloaded prompts in matters starting from branding to enterprise technique to gross sales. Customers can converse with the software for insights on find out how to optimize their operations.

The group’s consultants are all the time refining the AI platform, Medone mentioned. “The consultants aren’t doing something manually throughout interactions — that is 100% AI,” he mentioned. “What they’re doing is completely fine-tuning the algorithms, filtering what’s necessary and what’s not, to keep away from hallucinations and guarantee relevance.”

Consulting IQ runs on a subscription mannequin beginning at $99 a month. The Miami-based firm has partnered with Visa and Mastercard.

Perceptis

Alibek Dostiyarov, a former McKinsey marketing consultant, and Yersultan Sapar, a former engineer at Apple, cofounded Perceptis.

The corporate goals to assist smaller and midsize companies compete with larger trade gamers by utilizing AI to streamline a few of the extra tedious processes in consulting, like proposal writing.

Perceptis is now centered on the enterprise improvement facet of consulting. Its AI-powered working system can do trade analysis, determine alternatives that align with their consumer’s skillset and background, and create detailed, customized proposals that the consumer can use to win a job.

Dostiyarov advised BI earlier this yr that plenty of the inner processes accomplished at consulting companies are heavy with handbook labor and “lend themselves nearly completely to what GenAI is able to doing.”

He additionally mentioned Perceptis might make smaller companies, which do not sometimes have inner AI instruments, extra aggressive out there.

The corporate advised BI this week that whereas initially serving boutique administration consultancies, it is now rapidly increasing to serve IT companies, system integrators, software program builders, monetary companies, design companies, and actual property businesses.

Perceptis had raised $3.6 million in funding as of January.

Genpact

Genpact, an expert companies firm that expects to generate $5 billion in income this yr, has made a serious push over the previous yr to place itself as a frontrunner in AI technique.

Sanjeev Vohra, the corporate’s chief know-how officer — who spent greater than twenty years at Accenture — mentioned AI transformations have to start internally.

Final yr, Genpact launched “Shopper Zero,” an initiative to design, take a look at, and refine AI options in-house earlier than rolling them out to its 800-plus shoppers.

One instance is “Amber,” an AI-powered chief listening officer that has dealt with greater than 500,000 worker interactions prior to now yr.

“She’s dynamic. She works 24/7. She does not relaxation, and he or she’s speaking to individuals,” Vohra mentioned. Genpact has additionally deployed a set of AI finance instruments that it says can lower bill processing from weeks to hours.

Since launching Shopper Zero, Vohra mentioned, Genpact has trimmed almost $40 million from its working bills. Now, the corporate is piloting those self same options with shoppers.

Vohra mentioned shoppers need to see the worth they’re getting from investing on this know-how.

“Let’s assume you are spending $100 proper now for a sure course of — can it occur in $80? Can it occur in $70 within the subsequent one or two years?” He mentioned. “That is what the C-suite is on the lookout for.”

SIB

SIB focuses on serving to shoppers like restaurant teams, hospitals, universities, and authorities businesses discover financial savings in mounted prices — bills that stay static no matter how a lot an organization produces.

SIB CEO Shannon Copeland advised BI that these are sometimes present in areas that “escape scrutiny,” like charges for telecommunications, utilities, waste removing, delivery, and software program licenses. In response to his LinkedIn profile, Copeland is an alum of Accenture and Deloitte.

SIB has grown since its 2008 launch in Charleston, South Carolina. It is now a nationwide agency serving a whole bunch of shoppers, starting from Kroger and Marriott to governments like San Diego County. It not too long ago added over a dozen Fortune 500 firms and personal fairness companies. Since its launch, SIB says it has recognized greater than $8 billion in price financial savings.

Copeland mentioned that, not like conventional consulting companies, SIB operates below a contingency mannequin. “If we do not discover financial savings, we do not receives a commission,” he mentioned, including that the agency does not cost charges upfront.

SIB makes use of AI agents to observe invoices, vendor contracts, and billing patterns. The agency’s consultants use the ensuing insights to barter higher contract phrases or restructure their vendor relationships.

“You may consider us as half AI, half old-school operator,” Copeland mentioned.

Along with cost-cutting, the agency additionally focuses on strengthening relationships, a cornerstone of conventional consulting.

“We really encourage distributors and shoppers to return to high-trust, high-accountability partnerships by utilizing information as the place to begin for higher collaboration,” Copeland mentioned. “Working with robots really makes people hear to one another extra. It is ironic, nevertheless it works.”

Monevate

Monevate’s motto is easy — give attention to one factor and do it effectively.

The agency focuses on pricing technique for software-as-a-service and high-growth tech firms. It additionally works with personal fairness companies to evaluate the industrial viability of potential investments.

In response to his LinkedIn profile, James Wilton, an alum of McKinsey, Kearney, and ZS Associates, based Monevate in 2021. Wilton now serves because the Agency’s managing accomplice. The agency has 16 full-time consultants and has helped over 50 SaaS, tech, and AI firms prior to now three years.

“Most of our shoppers are backed by enterprise capital or personal fairness, and more and more, we’re working with groups constructing AI merchandise and options,” Wilton advised BI by e-mail.

Wilton mentioned shoppers normally flip to Monevate once they’ve hit a wall with their present technique as a result of their product has modified or the market has developed. “We design and implement fully-baked pricing methods, together with packaging, worth structure, and worth ranges,” he mentioned.

Wilton mentioned the impetus to launch the agency got here from the gaps he noticed in conventional consulting. “Purchasers typically complained about suggestions that by no means went wherever, excessive charges that solely the biggest firms might afford, no pores and skin within the recreation, rigid supply fashions, and extremely variable service high quality relying on the group,” he mentioned.

Monevate retains its focus slim, however that is allowed even its most junior consultants to turn into “deep pricing specialists,” Wilton mentioned.

He added that the agency’s work is “slim by consulting requirements, and it means strolling away from other forms of labor, nevertheless it permits us to be really nice at what we do.”

Keystone

Keystone is a method consulting agency that advises know-how firms, life science firms, governments, and legislation companies. Its shoppers embrace main companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Intel, Novartis, and Amgen.

The agency was based in 2003 by Greg Richards, a mechanical engineer by coaching and an alum of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, who now serves as an advisor to Harvard Business School, and Marco Iansiti, a physicist and professor at Harvard Enterprise Faculty.

Iansiti advised BI that Keystone tends to be extra “geeky and nerdy” than conventional consulting companies. “We like to sort of get deep on the tech facet of issues,” he mentioned. The group consists of information scientists, AI specialists, and lecturers.

Whereas many consulting companies are embracing generative AI, which is usually used to automate day-to-day work like writing emails or reviewing paperwork and contracts, Iansiti mentioned Keystone is focusing extra on operational AI.

Operational AI is used to rework core enterprise capabilities like managing provide chains, stock, pricing, and forecasting. In 2023, the agency launched “CoreAI,” a group devoted to utilizing AI to automate and enhance these areas.

“We get excited concerning the time period deep enterprise on this,” Iansiti mentioned. “Deep enterprise is actually the concept of utilizing deep studying fashions which might be embedded round essential working processes within the enterprise.”

The agency’s “worth add,” he mentioned, lies in constructing this sort of “fairly distinctive operational AI” for its shoppers.

Fusion Collective

Fusion Collective is an IT consulting agency that provides a spread of consulting companies to shoppers, together with technique and administration recommendation, cloud transformation, and AI alignment.

The agency was based by Blake Crawford, who labored on enterprise structure at MTV Networks and Viacom, and Yvette Schmitter, an alum of Deloitte, PwC, and Amazon Net Companies, the place she led three cloud migrations, together with the biggest within the firm’s historical past.

Schmitter mentioned that in her expertise, shoppers are in search of AI recommendation from consulting companies earlier than they’re prepared.

“We have now organizations who’re operating at 99 miles an hour, hiring these companies to construct these AI technique paperwork, 165 pages of gorgeous PowerPoints, proper?” she mentioned. However these firms nonetheless cannot “operationalize” AI, she mentioned. “Why? As a result of the fundamental infrastructure is not there. Any sort of vulnerability that they’ve in safety, their cloud infrastructure, is simply exacerbated by AI.”

Ultimately, shoppers selected consultants primarily based on belief, their networks, and present enterprise relationships, she mentioned.

“I actually consider {that a} true accomplice is one who’s going to let you know the reality. Inform it like it’s even when it hurts proper?” Schmitter mentioned. To that finish, she mentioned she asks shoppers who come to her about AI technique to have a strong grasp of their infrastructure footprint, information governance insurance policies, and safety earlier than they speed up adoption.

The underside line is that Fusion Collective likes to maintain its recommendation actual. “If firms haven’t mastered the basics, you are not prepared for AI, and you are not prepared for a military of consultants to come back in to do stuff,” Schmitter mentioned.

Slideworks

Slideworks is not essentially going after consulting companies’ enterprise, although it focuses on one thing lots of the huge guys are recognized for: making highly effective slides.

Slideworks gives what it calls “high-end” PowerPoint templates and “toolkits” created by former consultants for Bain, BCG, and McKinsey.

If you work as a marketing consultant at a top-tier agency, “you might be schooled every single day in finest apply shows and slide design,” the corporate says on its web site. The concept is to supply entry to a library of slides and spreadsheets for areas together with technique, provide chain administration, and “digital transformation.”

In a February weblog submit, Alexandra Hazard Kampmann, a Slideworks accomplice, wrote that “administration consultants are sometimes made enjoyable of as ‘slide monkeys.'” But, she added, the slide is a “essential motive” why McKinsey and BCG consultants have so many Fortune 500 firms as shoppers.

Slideworks gives a “consulting toolkit,” which incorporates 205 slides and prices $129. It additionally gives a “consulting proposal,” which has 242 slides plus an Excel mannequin and prices $149.

There are additionally operations, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise technique, and product technique templates.

Slideworks says it has greater than 4,500 clients globally, together with Coca-Cola, Pfizer, and the professional-services companies Deloitte and EY.

Unity Advisory

Some high UK executives from Ernst & Young and PwC are becoming a member of forces to launch a brand new agency referred to as Unity Advisory in June, the Monetary Occasions reported. The agency will probably be chaired by Steve Varley, who spent almost 19 years at EY, and led by CEO Marissa Thomas, who labored at PwC for over 30 years, in accordance with their LinkedIn profiles.

It’s backed by as much as $300 million from Warburg Pincus, a personal fairness agency, and can give attention to tax and accounting companies, know-how consulting, and mergers and acquisitions.

“CFOs are open to a brand new proposition,” Varley advised the FT. “The Huge 4 are an aesthetic bunch of service suppliers, however individuals are on the lookout for a proposition that’s tremendous client-centric, has actually low administrative price, is AI-led slightly than primarily based on legacy infrastructure and, crucially, has no conflicts.”

Correction: An earlier model of this text misstated the month-to-month pricing for Consulting IQ. It begins at $99 per thirty days, not $9. It additionally misstated the agency’s partnership with JP Morgan, which is its major working financial institution.