Consulting firms moved quickly to make AI part of employees’ working lives. Now they are confronting the cost of using it at scale.
One of McKinsey’s strategies for managing rising costs isn’t to cap consultants’ use of AI but to let them know when they’re using too much.
The firm tracks consumption on a user-by-user basis and alerts its employees via email when their AI usage gets too high, said Debasish Patnaik, who leads QuantumBlack — McKinsey’s AI, data, and analytics group — in the UK. The alert system was introduced firmwide in the summer.
“Similar to using mobile data on a work phone, we tell them this is how you could do things to make…
