A brief history and the future of consulting: creativity and AI

The roots of strategy consulting go back to the early 1900s, when Booz Allen Hamilton and McKinsey began their operations. In the 1930s, US antitrust laws prevented banks from providing strategic advice to their clients, creating a market for independent management consultants. As business challenges grew more complex in the 1950s and 60s, consulting became more common, especially with the competition and supply chains became global.

In the 1970s and 80s, data-driven consulting was complemented by qualitative analysis and human insight. Since the 1990s, digitalisation has transformed business industry by industry. (Who still remembers bank passbooks?) After 2000, the focus has been not only on sustainable business, but also networks, the platform economy, and technology.

Human work is set to fall significantly

Artificial intelligence will transform not just daily life and work, but also consulting itself. By 2030, it is forecast that AI and automation’s part of all worktasks forecast to be 66 %. This is a 13 percentage point increase from 2025.

Traditionally, the success of large consulting firms has been built on a large knowledge base and teams of specialists. These knowledge resources have been leveraged to support many clients’ business development. Already, AI is much more efficient than humans at analysing data. At the same time, business challenges have become more complex. Linear value chains are turning into value networks that require new types of leadership, and uncertainty in the operating environment has grown sharply, up 183 % since 2019.

What is needed to succeed in an uncertain environment?

The rapid pace of change and increased uncertainty means business development demands a new approach to consulting.

• Foresight and scenario planning to see future opportunities and make decisions to realise them.
• The ability to understand people and organisations, ensuring customer value in a changing environment.
• The skills to launch new services so they find their place in customers’ everyday lives. Agile experimentation and learning quickly from failures.
• Change leadership that inspires people about the future.
• Open-minded experimentation with new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The World Economic Forum has identified creativity as one of the most important future work skills. Leveraging artificial intelligence can free up time for ideation, human interaction, co-creation and envisioning the future.

By outsourcing routine tasks to AI and focusing on where humans excel, new perspectives are created and people are engaged in building the future. At After, we use AI wherever it brings efficiency, impact, and improves outcomes. This frees up more time for co-creation, joint ideation, dialogue and making choices together.