McKinsey Says AI Will Replace 30% of Consulting Work. I Think They're Lowballing.
The latest research on AI in professional services validates what we've been building. But the real disruption is bigger than anyone's admitting.
The Report Everyone's Talking About
McKinsey's latest Global Institute report projects that AI will automate roughly 30% of activities in professional services by 2030. The consulting industry is buzzing about it—mostly with reassurance that "the human element will always be needed."
They're right about that last part. But they're wrong about the 30% figure. It's going to be much higher for certain types of consulting work.
Where 30% Comes From
McKinsey's methodology looks at individual tasks within jobs and estimates automation potential. For management consulting, they see AI handling:
- Data gathering and analysis
- Report generation
- Basic diagnostic assessments
- Benchmarking against best practices
- Document review and synthesis
That gets you to about 30%. Reasonable, if you're thinking about general management consulting.
Why Platform Consulting Is Different
But when you narrow the lens to platform consulting—Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceNow administration and optimization—the automation potential is dramatically higher. Here's why:
1. The Work Is Highly Structured
Platform consulting follows patterns. Health checks use checklists. Implementations follow methodologies. Configurations have best practices. This is exactly the type of work AI excels at.
2. The Data Is Digital and Accessible
Unlike strategy consulting where information lives in people's heads and PowerPoint decks, platform data is structured, queryable, and comprehensive. AI can access and analyze 100% of an org's configuration in minutes.
3. Expertise Is Codifiable
When a senior Salesforce consultant looks at a permission set configuration, they're applying rules learned over years. But those rules can be codified. They're not intuitive leaps—they're pattern matching against known best practices.
4. The Feedback Loop Is Tight
In strategy consulting, you might wait months to see if your recommendation worked. In platform consulting, you can validate changes immediately. This makes AI training and improvement dramatically faster.
My Estimate: 80% for Platform Consulting
Based on two decades of doing this work, I believe AI will handle 80% of platform consulting activities within 3-5 years. The remaining 20% involves:
- **Novel architecture design** for truly unique requirements
- **Organizational change management** around platform decisions
- **Business process redesign** that transcends platform configuration
- **Stakeholder alignment** for controversial trade-offs
What This Means for the Industry
This isn't a reason for platform consultants to panic. It's a reason to evolve. The consultants who thrive will:
- **Leverage AI** to handle the 80% and focus their expertise on the high-value 20%
- **Move upstream** from implementation to strategy
- **Become trusted advisors** rather than button-pushers
- **Specialize deeper** in areas AI can't easily replicate
The consultants who try to protect the old model will find themselves competing against tools that are faster, cheaper, and increasingly more thorough.
The BuildForce Thesis
This is exactly why we built BuildForce. Not to replace consultants, but to democratize the 80% of their work that follows patterns—and make it accessible to the 80% of companies that currently can't afford consulting engagements.
The future isn't AI vs. humans. It's AI-augmented humans serving a much larger market.
What do you think? Is 80% too aggressive? Too conservative? I'd love to hear from other practitioners.