Latest news with #KateSmaje
AU Financial Review
3 days ago
- Business
- AU Financial Review
McKinsey leans on AI to do junior workers' tasks
New York | McKinsey's consultants are increasingly drafting proposals and making PowerPoint slides using the firm's generative artificial intelligence platform, which has developed enough to take over at least some of the tasks typically performed by junior employees. While employees have access to the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT, they can only input confidential client data into Lilli, the proprietary platform aggregating McKinsey's knowledge base, according to Kate Smaje, the company's global leader of technology and AI.
Entrepreneur
3 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
AI Creates PowerPoints at McKinsey Replacing Junior Workers
Over 75% of McKinsey employees now use the internal AI tool Lilli, which safely handles confidential information. McKinsey consultants are using the firm's proprietary AI platform to take over tasks that have traditionally been handled by junior employees. Kate Smaje, McKinsey's global leader of technology and AI, told Bloomberg on Monday that McKinsey employees are increasingly tapping into Lilli, the internal AI platform the firm launched in 2023. While employees are permitted to use ChatGPT internally, Lilli is the only platform that allows them to input confidential client data safely. Related: Salesforce Has Used AI to Reduce Personnel Costs By $50 Million This Year. Here's Which Roles Are Affected. Over 75% of McKinsey's 43,000 employees are now using Lilli monthly, Smaje disclosed. Lilli was named after Lillian Dombrowski, the first woman hired by McKinsey in 1945. Through Lilli, McKinsey consultants can create a PowerPoint slideshow through a prompt and modify the tone of the presentation with a tool called "Tone of Voice" to ensure that the text aligns with the firm's writing style. They can also draft proposals for client projects while maintaining the firm's standards, find internal subject matter experts, and research industry trends. Lilli has advanced enough to take over tasks typically assigned to junior employees, but Smaje says that doesn't mean McKinsey is going to hire fewer junior analysts. "Do we need armies of business analysts creating PowerPoints? No, the technology could do that," Smaje told Bloomberg. "It's not necessarily that I'm going to have fewer of them [analysts], but they're going to be doing the things that are more valuable to our clients." McKinsey told Business Insider that Lilli was trained on the firm's entire intellectual property, encompassing over 100,000 documents and interviews across the firm's nearly 100-year history. McKinsey employees who use Lilli turn to it 17 times per week on average, a McKinsey senior partner told BI. A case study published on McKinsey's website shows that Lilli answers over half a million prompts every month, saving workers 30% of the time they would have spent on gathering and synthesizing information. Related: The CEO of $61 Billion Anthropic Says AI Will Take Over a Crucial Part of Software Engineers' Jobs Within a Year Consulting firms have been tapping into AI for years. Bain consultants have access to Sage, an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI. At Boston Consulting Group, employees use an AI tool called Deckster to fine-tune their PowerPoint presentations. Meanwhile, at other companies, AI is taking over tasks once completed by human workers. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said last month that the company replaced hundreds of human resources staff with AI, then used the freed-up resources to hire more programmers and salespeople. A report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that tracks over 650 million employees on LinkedIn, found that new graduates accounted for just 7% of new hires in 2024 at big tech companies, down 25% from 2023, as AI takes over entry-level tasks.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
McKinsey's AI Now Writes the Deck--Is This the Future of Consulting?
The consulting world might be on the edge of a quiet transformationand McKinsey is already deep in it. Its in-house AI, Lilli, isn't just answering questions anymore. It's writing slides, setting tone, and churning out client-ready reports. Over 75% of McKinsey's employees use the tool regularly, and it's now considered by leadership as part of the team. Headcount has dropped from over 45,000 at the end of 2023 to around 40,000 today. But rather than signal cuts, the firm suggests that AI is freeing people to focus on higher-value work. Do I need armies of analysts making PowerPoints? No, said tech chief Kate Smaje. Is that a bad thing? No, that's a great thing. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Sign with MSFT. Other firms aren't sitting idle. Bain consultants are working with Sage, a custom OpenAI-powered chat system. PWC's Strategy& taps Microsoft Copilot. And at Boston Consulting Group, AI now contributes around 20% of the firm's total revenuea share it expects to climb. Accenture, meanwhile, is going big on physical infrastructure, building 10 global AI hubs, including one in London. What used to be slide decks and spreadsheets is quickly turning into prompt engineering, proprietary LLMs, and tech stacks. McKinsey's own AI muscle doesn't stop at Lilli. Its QuantumBlack unit is scaling up, with help from partners like Anthropic, Cohere, and Mistral AI. For investors watching the consulting-tech collision, this moment could signal something deeper: a shift in how value is created and delivered at the enterprise level. And as demand for generative AI ramps up, companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)a key OpenAI partnerand other AI infrastructure leaders could be indirect winners. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
McKinsey Leans On AI to Make PowerPoints Faster, Draft Proposals
McKinsey & Co. 's consultants are increasingly drafting proposals and making PowerPoint slides using the firm's generative artificial intelligence platform, which has developed enough to take over at least some of the tasks typically performed by junior employees. While employees have access to the likes of OpenAI's GhatGPT, they can only input confidential client data into Lilli, the proprietary platform aggregating McKinsey's knowledge base, according to Kate Smaje, the company's global leader of technology and AI.
