Artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are increasingly partnering with consulting firms to help businesses deploy AI tools, as many organisations struggle to move beyond early experiments with the technology.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the companies have struck agreements with consulting firms including McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte to help corporate clients integrate AI systems into their operations.
The partnerships aim to address a widening gap between the promise of AI and how widely companies actually use it.
A McKinsey survey of nearly 2,000 employees last summer found that about two-thirds said their organisations had not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise. In a separate survey of nearly 4,500 chief executives conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, more than half reported seeing little or no financial benefit from AI so far.
To close that gap, OpenAI has been working with consulting firms to help companies deploy its Frontier platform, which allows businesses to build and manage AI agents for specific tasks. The company’s team of roughly 70 forward-deployed engineers works directly with organisations to identify potential use cases and integrate the technology into real-world workflows, the Journal reported.
Consulting firms are expected to help shape strategy and redesign business processes around the tools.
At a large European bank, OpenAI and one of its consulting partners evaluated several potential uses for Frontier, including applications related to credit-risk analysis and voice capabilities, Colin Jarvis, OpenAI’s global head of forward-deployed engineering, told the Journal.
“All the firms are tying themselves up with one or the other, trying to figure out who’s best to be with,” Bill Achtmeyer, chairman at Acropolis Advisors and founder of strategy consulting firm Parthenon, told the Journal.
Anthropic has taken a similar approach. The company announced a partnership with Deloitte last year to develop industry-specific AI solutions and also works with other consulting firms.
Industry analysts say the broad range of possible AI applications is driving demand for consulting services.
Damilare Odedina
“AI stands apart from previous tech advances because its applications are so broad, and many potential uses have yet to be discovered,” Tom Rodenhauser, managing partner at K2 Consulting Research, told the Journal.
The surge in AI-related work is already boosting the consulting sector. K2 Consulting Research estimates global consulting revenue grew 5.5 per cent in 2025, roughly double the rate recorded the previous year.
Accenture, for example, reported $2.2 billion in new AI-related bookings in its most recent quarter, an increase of $400 million from the prior quarter.
The rise of AI is also changing how consulting projects are structured. According to the journal, some firms are shifting toward outcome-based pricing models where they are paid based on whether projects achieve specific results rather than the size of consulting teams involved.
“The way we’ve known consulting over the last 50 years changes pretty dramatically,” Rodenhauser said.
Still, some analysts say companies will continue to rely on human advisers when making major strategic decisions.
As Mo Koyfman, founder of venture capital firm Shine Capital, put it: “They want a throat to cchoke… They want to be able to pick up a phone and call a human being and say, ‘You screwed me.’”
