Management consulting is supposed to be dying. Years of headlines have claimed that AI made the industry obsolete, with a chatbot now doing the research and modeling that armies of young analysts used to handle. That claim is largely wrong. Client demand for outside advice has not collapsed, and firms such as McKinsey and Bain still win the assignments the business is known for. The collapse is one level down, in the entry-level jobs that once turned ambitious graduates into consultants.
The business survives because of what clients pay for. They pay to get a divided leadership team behind one plan and to build what the plan requires. Capgemini’s chief strategy officer, Fernando Alvarez, told Fortune his clients pay for a finished result they put to use right away. Executives also keep consultants to justify decisions to their boards and to have someone to blame if a plan fails, Fortune reported. A chatbot cannot sit in a boardroom and take that responsibility.
Even the companies building chatbots need that help. Fortune reported that OpenAI has roughly seventy staff to help customers put its models to work, too few for large clients. So it turned to McKinsey and other established firms to help deliver its AI tools.
None of that work needs the large teams of junior analysts these firms once built their staffing around. Data from the workforce research firm Revelio Labs shows the shift. Since 2020, demand for senior consultants at top firms has grown 55 percent, while hiring of entry-level consultants has fallen 10 percent from its peak. In 2015, these firms employed close to four junior consultants for every person working on AI inside the firm. By 2025, AI roles outnumbered entry-level consulting jobs.
For a certain kind of graduate, that entry-level job was the whole appeal. A firm hired a generalist in their twenties with no fixed career plan and paid a six-figure salary. Over two or three years, it taught them to take apart an unfamiliar business problem every few months. Afterward, the firm’s name on a resume vouched for them before a new employer asked a single question. AI now does that research and modeling faster, along with the slides, so the training ground is thinning. Smart generalists are heading toward startups, AI companies, small business ownership and projects of their own sooner than the old ladder allowed.
