After the release of ChatGPT in 2022, the marketing team at Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Lysol and Mucinex, was convinced that the new artificial intelligence technology could help their business. But the team didn’t know how to do it, so they turned to the Boston Consulting Group for help.
Reckitt’s request was one of hundreds Boston Consulting Group received last year. The company now makes a fifth of its revenue – up from zero just two years ago – from work related to artificial intelligence.
“There is a real hunger to understand what the implications are for their businesses,” said Vladimir Lukic, managing director of technology at Boston Consulting Group.
The next big tech boom is a long-awaited gift for wonky consultants. From Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company to IBM and Accenture, sales are increasing and hiring is on the rise because companies desperately need technology Sherpas who can help them understand what generative AI means and how it can help their businesses.
As the tech industry looks for ways to make money from generative AI, consultants have started to take advantage of it.
IBM, which has 160,000 consultants, has secured more than $1 billion in business commitments related to generative AI for consulting work and its Watsonx system, which can be used to create and maintain business models. AI. Accenture, which provides consulting and technology services, had revenue of $300 million last year. About 40% of McKinsey’s activity this year will be related to generative AI, and KPMG International, which has a global consulting division, moved from working without money a year ago to work related to Generative AI targets over $650 million in related business opportunities. to technology over the past six months.
The demand for technology advice is reminiscent of the dot-com boom. Businesses flocked to consultants for advice in the 1990s. From 1992 to 2000, digital consulting firm Sapient’s revenue grew from $950,000 to $503 million. Subsequent technological changes, such as the migration to mobile and cloud computing, were less rushed, said Nigel Vaz, chief executive of the company, now known as Publicis Sapient.
“In the mid-’90s, CEOs were saying, ‘I don’t know what a website is or what it could do for my business, but I need one,'” Mr. Vaz said. “It’s similar. Companies say, “Don’t tell me what to build. Tell me what you can build.
Consulting firms tried hard to show what they were capable of. In May, the Boston Consulting Group hosted a daylong conference at a Boston convention center, where it set up demo booths for OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI technology leaders. He also presented some of his own AI work in robotics and programming.
Sales of generative AI are helping the sector return to growth after a post-pandemic lull. The U.S. management consulting industry is expected to generate $392.2 billion in sales this year, up 2 percent from last year, according to IBISWorld, a research firm.
The work for which the consultants have been hired varies from company to company. Some consulting firms are advising companies on regulatory compliance as regions like the European Union pass laws regulating artificial intelligence. Others are developing plans for AI customer support systems or developing guardrails to prevent AI systems from making mistakes.
For businesses, the results have been mixed. Generative AI tends to give people incorrect, irrelevant, or absurd information, called hallucinations. It is difficult to ensure that it provides accurate information. It may also be slower to respond than a person, which can confuse customers as to how their questions will be answered.
IBM, which has a $20 billion consulting business, encountered some of these problems in its work with McDonald’s. Companies have developed an AI-based voice system to take orders while driving. But after customers reported the system made errors, such as adding nine iced teas to an order instead of the one Diet Coke called for, McDonald’s pulled the plug on the project.
McDonald’s said it remained committed to a future of digital ordering and would evaluate alternative systems. IBM said it was working with McDonald’s on other projects and was in discussions with other restaurant chains about using its voice-controlled AI.
Other IBM programs have shown more promise. The company worked with Dun & Bradstreet, a business data provider, to develop a generative AI system to analyze and provide advice on supplier selection. The tool, called Ask Procurement, will allow employees to perform detailed searches with specific parameters. For example, it could find minority memory chip suppliers and automatically create a request for proposals for them.
Gary Kotovets, head of data and analytics at Dun & Bradstreet, said his team of 30 needed IBM’s help to build the system. To reassure customers that the answers Ask Procurement provided were accurate, it insisted that customers be able to trace each answer back to an original source.
“Hallucinations are a real concern and, in some cases, a perceived concern,” Mr. Kotovets said. “You have to overcome both and convince the client that it’s not a hallucination.”
For seven weeks this year, McKinsey’s AI group QuantumBlack built a customer service chatbot for ING bank, with guardrails to prevent it from offering advice on mortgages or loans. ‘investment.
As the chatbot’s viability was uncertain and McKinsey had limited experience with this relatively new technology, the firm carried out this work as a “joint experiment” as part of its contract with ING, said Bahadir Yilmaz, director of analysis at ING. The bank paid McKinsey for the work, but Yilmaz said many consultants were willing to do speculative work with generative AI without getting paid because they wanted to demonstrate what they could do with the new technology. .
The project required a lot of manpower. When ING’s chatbot gave incorrect information during its development, McKinsey and ING had to identify the cause. They attributed the problem to issues such as outdated websites, said Rodney Zemmel, a senior associate at McKinsey working on technology.
The chatbot now handles 200 of 5,000 customer requests daily. ING has people review each conversation to ensure the system doesn’t use discriminatory or harmful language or hallucinate.
“The difference between ChatGPT and our chatbot is that our chatbot cannot make a mistake,” Mr. Yilmaz said. “We have to be safe with the system we’re building, but we’re close to it.”
This year, over a four-month period, Reckitt worked with Boston Consulting Group to develop an AI platform capable of creating local ads in different languages and formats. With the push of a button, the system can transform an advertisement for Finish dishwashing detergent from English to Spanish.
Reckitt’s AI marketing system, which is currently being tested, can speed up local ad development by 30%, saving the company time and tedious work, Becky Verano said , vice president of creativity and global capabilities at Reckitt.
Because the technology is so new, Ms. Verano said, the team is learning and adjusting its work as new technology companies release updates to the image and language models. She credited the Boston Consulting Group with providing structure to the chaos.
“You have to constantly adapt to the latest trends, the newest discoveries and learn how the tools react each time,” she said. “There’s no exact science to it.”
News Source : www.nytimes.com
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