BCG partners with Anthropic to launch an AI consulting offer

Companies use consultants to get advice in a lot of areas. Now, many companies, including the BCG (Boston Consulting Group), will also provide assistance in generative AI.

Last week, Anthropic announced its partnership with the BCG to offer its AI models, including its assistant Claude 2, to BCG customers. Through this partnership, the BCG will contribute to informing its clients on the best ways to strategically apply AI and will also help them deploy Anthropic models.

Use cases for companies include, in particular, “knowledge management, market research, fraud detection, demand forecasting, report generation and business analysis,” according to the statement.

All consulting firms are jumping on AI

Throughout the press release, the emphasis is on the ethical and responsible use of AI. Probably to address concerns about the replacement of human labor by AI and the burning issue of data security in companies. “Our collaboration with Anthropic will help align the ethics and effectiveness of GenAI,” says Sylvain Duranton, global head of BCG X. “Together, we want to set a new standard for responsible corporate AI and promote a race for safety so that AI is deployed ethically.”

Last week, the consulting company EY also announced a $1.4 billion investment in its own generative AI platform called EY.ai . This platform is also intended to help customers adopt AI to achieve their business goals.

BCG and EY join an already long list of consulting firms with ongoing AI projects, including KPMG, Accenture and McKinsey.

AI, a relay for the growth of ESNs?

The timing of these investments in AI is interesting since the main consulting firms have all suffered layoffs, hiring freezes or start-up delays over the past year. According to The Wall Street Journal, after recruiting heavily to meet the growing demand related to the pandemic, some of the big four consulting firms, including KPMG, Deloitte and EY, have had to reduce their staff.

Another WSJ article shows that the recently hired “beginner” consultants do not have enough work to do. As a result, they are fired, as in the case of KPMG and EY, or have their start-up dates delayed, as in the case of McKinsey and Bain, which have pushed back their start-up dates until 2024.

As the industry as a whole suffers from the pandemic, it is interesting to see that companies are investing time and money in AI initiatives, which can be seen as an attempt to leverage the popularity of generative AI to attract customers.

Source: “ZDNet.com “