Two units of gamers have lengthy dominated the consulting world.
There may be MBB, which is McKinsey & Firm, Bain & Firm, and Boston Consulting Group. After which there may be the Big Four: PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Younger.
Now, a brand new wave of AI-driven startups is difficult that dominance, making an attempt to make consulting providers extra accessible.
Lots of the founders of those new corporations come from the standard consulting realm. They instructed Enterprise Insider their experiences not solely give them marketable expertise however have additionally helped them establish new alternatives within the business.
They’re boutique corporations. They’re much smaller than the established ones, usually run by groups starting from just some folks to a couple hundred. They’re additionally extra specialised, specializing in areas like pricing technique, value discount, or refining slide decks.
And, importantly, they’re all in on AI.
A lot of them mentioned their strategies assist them scale back old-school paperwork, provide extra aggressive charges, and make the human aspect of consulting work simpler.
Listed here are the boutique corporations that, to various levels, are difficult the basic consulting mannequin.
Xavier AI
Xavier AI describes itself because the world’s first AI technique guide.
In response to Joao Filipe, cofounder of Xavier and a former McKinsey guide, the Xavier AI chatbot can present clear, actionable enterprise data and deliverables, like a 60-page marketing strategy, a gross sales presentation, or an in depth advertising and marketing technique.
Filipe mentioned Xavier AI has its personal proprietary reasoning engine that’s tailored for enterprise use circumstances and might present detailed sources with out the hallucination you would possibly discover with different chatbots. He mentioned Xavier can present each technique suggestions and actionable plans for implementation.
“99.9% of companies might actually by no means afford McKinsey or any of the MBBs,” Filipe instructed BI. “We created Xavier AI in order that anybody might have the ability of a consulting agency at their fingers after they want it.”
Xavier AI formally launched in April, however Filipe mentioned he is been piloting it with completely different shoppers, together with a global financial institution utilizing it to analysis potential shoppers and higher perceive their wants.
Since its launch, Filipe says enterprise has been booming. He mentioned the corporate’s income has doubled month over month, and he expects that development to proceed by means of the remainder of 2025.
NextStrat
Nexstrat.ai positions its product as a multifunctional agent that may automate lots of the typical duties of a guide.
Nexstrat’s cofounder and CEO, Arda Ecevit, who spent years at Bain & Firm and Deloitte earlier than founding the corporate in 2024, mentioned the platform mirrors the “hypothesis-based downside fixing” sometimes utilized by consulting corporations.
Behind the scenes, the platform leverages a number of brokers to meet the capabilities of a challenge supervisor, a chief technique officer, and an AI advisor, to assist groups make higher choices and resolve enterprise points, Ecevit instructed Enterprise Insider.
Ecevit mentioned the platform has already labored with some main corporations, together with some among the many Fortune 500, and even some main consulting corporations, which he mentioned have been testing his agency’s know-how on issues like knowledge evaluation, analysis, and motion planning.
Consulting IQ
Consulting IQ was born out of the pandemic as an antidote to the variety of small and midsize companies failing.
“We noticed so many small and midsize companies collapsing for causes past their management,” Diego Medone, the founder and CEO of Consulting IQ, instructed Enterprise Insider.
There are an estimated 400 million corporations around the globe, 99% of which belong within the micro, small, or midsize class, Medone mentioned. However, he mentioned, 65% of small and midsize companies fade away earlier than 12 months 5.
“That is 260 million corporations worldwide,” he mentioned.
Medone, a longtime administration guide who rose to associate at KPMG, started conducting analysis.
He mentioned he and his workforce of former McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants performed 10,000 interviews with small and midsize corporations in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific. The purpose was to study firsthand from enterprise house owners the challenges and dangers they face every day.
They used that info to formally launch Consulting IQ in 2024. The platform positions itself as an AI-powered boutique guide devoted to the wants of small and medium-sized companies.
As soon as a person registers on the platform, they supply a number of primary particulars about their enterprise — who they’re, the place they function, and their challenges. Then they will see a listing of over 5,000 preloaded prompts in subjects starting from branding to enterprise technique to gross sales. Customers can converse with the instrument for insights on easy methods to optimize their operations.
The workforce’s consultants are at all times refining the AI platform, Medone mentioned. “The consultants aren’t doing something manually throughout interactions — that is 100% AI,” he mentioned. “What they’re doing is completely fine-tuning the algorithms, filtering what’s essential and what’s not, to keep away from hallucinations and guarantee relevance.”
Consulting IQ runs on a subscription mannequin beginning at $99 a month. The Miami-based firm has partnered with Visa and Mastercard.
Perceptis
Alibek Dostiyarov, a former McKinsey guide, and Yersultan Sapar, a former engineer at Apple, cofounded Perceptis.
The corporate goals to assist smaller and midsize corporations compete with larger business gamers through the use of AI to streamline a few of the extra tedious processes in consulting, like proposal writing.
Perceptis is now centered on the enterprise improvement aspect of consulting. Its AI-powered working system can do business analysis, establish alternatives that align with their shopper’s skillset and background, and create detailed, customized proposals that the shopper can use to win a job.
Dostiyarov instructed BI earlier this 12 months that a number of the inner processes accomplished at consulting corporations are heavy with handbook labor and “lend themselves nearly completely to what GenAI is able to doing.”
He additionally mentioned Perceptis might make smaller corporations, which do not sometimes have inner AI instruments, extra aggressive available in the market.
The corporate instructed BI this week that whereas initially serving boutique administration consultancies, it is now rapidly increasing to serve IT providers, system integrators, software program builders, monetary providers, design corporations, and actual property businesses.
Perceptis had raised $3.6 million in funding as of January.
Genpact
Genpact, knowledgeable providers firm that expects to generate $5 billion in income this 12 months, has made a serious push over the previous 12 months to place itself as a frontrunner in AI technique.
Sanjeev Vohra, the corporate’s chief know-how officer — who spent greater than 20 years at Accenture — mentioned AI transformations have to start internally.
Final 12 months, Genpact launched “Shopper Zero,” an initiative to design, take a look at, and refine AI options in-house earlier than rolling them out to its 800-plus shoppers.
One instance is “Amber,” an AI-powered chief listening officer that has dealt with greater than 500,000 worker interactions previously 12 months.
“She’s dynamic. She works 24/7. She would not relaxation, and she or he’s speaking to folks,” Vohra mentioned. Genpact has additionally deployed a collection of AI finance instruments that it says can reduce bill processing from weeks to hours.
Since launching Shopper Zero, Vohra mentioned, Genpact has trimmed practically $40 million from its working bills. Now, the corporate is piloting those self same options with shoppers.
Vohra mentioned shoppers wish to see the worth they’re getting from investing on this know-how.
“Let’s assume you are spending $100 proper now for a sure course of — can it occur in $80? Can it occur in $70 within the subsequent one or two years?” He mentioned. “That is what the C-suite is on the lookout for.”
SIB
SIB makes a speciality of serving to shoppers like restaurant teams, hospitals, universities, and authorities businesses discover financial savings in fastened prices — bills that stay static no matter how a lot an organization produces.
SIB CEO Shannon Copeland instructed BI that these are sometimes present in areas that “escape scrutiny,” like charges for telecommunications, utilities, waste removing, transport, and software program licenses. In response to his LinkedIn profile, Copeland is an alum of Accenture and Deloitte.
SIB has grown since its 2008 launch in Charleston, South Carolina. It is now a nationwide agency serving a whole bunch of shoppers, starting from Kroger and Marriott to governments like San Diego County. It lately added over a dozen Fortune 500 corporations and personal fairness corporations. Since its launch, SIB says it has recognized greater than $8 billion in value financial savings.
Copeland mentioned that, not like conventional consulting corporations, SIB operates underneath a contingency mannequin. “If we do not discover financial savings, we do not receives a commission,” he mentioned, including that the agency would not cost charges upfront.
SIB makes use of AI agents to observe invoices, vendor contracts, and billing patterns. The agency’s consultants use the ensuing insights to barter higher contract phrases or restructure their vendor relationships.
“You might consider us as half AI, half old-school operator,” Copeland mentioned.
Along with cost-cutting, the agency additionally focuses on strengthening relationships, a cornerstone of conventional consulting.
“We really encourage distributors and shoppers to return to high-trust, high-accountability partnerships through the use of knowledge as the place to begin for higher collaboration,” Copeland mentioned. “Working with robots really makes people hear to one another extra. It is ironic, nevertheless it works.”
Monevate
Monevate’s motto is easy — concentrate on one factor and do it nicely.
The agency focuses on pricing technique for software-as-a-service and high-growth tech corporations. It additionally works with personal fairness corporations to evaluate the business viability of potential investments.
In response to his LinkedIn profile, James Wilton, an alum of McKinsey, Kearney, and ZS Associates, based Monevate in 2021. Wilton now serves because the Agency’s managing associate. The agency has 16 full-time consultants and has helped over 50 SaaS, tech, and AI corporations previously three years.
“Most of our shoppers are backed by enterprise capital or personal fairness, and more and more, we’re working with groups constructing AI merchandise and options,” Wilton instructed BI by e mail.
Wilton mentioned shoppers often flip to Monevate after they’ve hit a wall with their present technique as a result of their product has modified or the market has developed. “We design and implement fully-baked pricing methods, together with packaging, value structure, and value ranges,” he mentioned.
Wilton mentioned the impetus to launch the agency got here from the gaps he noticed in conventional consulting. “Purchasers usually complained about suggestions that by no means went anyplace, excessive charges that solely the most important corporations might afford, no pores and skin within the sport, rigid supply fashions, and extremely variable service high quality relying on the workforce,” he mentioned.
Monevate retains its focus slim, however that is allowed even its most junior consultants to develop into “deep pricing consultants,” Wilton mentioned.
He added that the agency’s work is “slim by consulting requirements, and it means strolling away from other forms of labor, nevertheless it permits us to be really nice at what we do.”
Keystone
Keystone is a method consulting agency that advises know-how corporations, life science corporations, governments, and regulation corporations. Its shoppers embody main firms like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Intel, Novartis, and Amgen.
The agency was based in 2003 by Greg Richards, a mechanical engineer by coaching and an alum of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, who now serves as an advisor to Harvard Business School, and Marco Iansiti, a physicist and professor at Harvard Enterprise College.
Iansiti instructed BI that Keystone tends to be extra “geeky and nerdy” than conventional consulting corporations. “We like to sort of get deep on the tech aspect of issues,” he mentioned. The workforce consists of knowledge scientists, AI consultants, and teachers.
Whereas many consulting corporations are embracing generative AI, which is usually used to automate day-to-day work like writing emails or reviewing paperwork and contracts, Iansiti mentioned Keystone is focusing extra on operational AI.
Operational AI is used to remodel core enterprise capabilities like managing provide chains, stock, pricing, and forecasting. In 2023, the agency launched “CoreAI,” a workforce devoted to utilizing AI to automate and enhance these areas.
“We get excited concerning the time period deep enterprise on this,” Iansiti mentioned. “Deep enterprise is de facto the thought of utilizing deep studying fashions which might be embedded round essential working processes within the enterprise.”
The agency’s “worth add,” he mentioned, lies in constructing this type of “fairly distinctive operational AI” for its shoppers.
Fusion Collective
Fusion Collective is an IT consulting agency that gives a spread of consulting providers to shoppers, together with technique and administration recommendation, cloud transformation, and AI alignment.
The agency was based by Blake Crawford, who labored on enterprise structure at MTV Networks and Viacom, and Yvette Schmitter, an alum of Deloitte, PwC, and Amazon Internet Companies, the place she led three cloud migrations, together with the most important within the firm’s historical past.
Schmitter mentioned that in her expertise, shoppers are in search of AI recommendation from consulting corporations earlier than they’re prepared.
“We’ve organizations who’re working at 99 miles an hour, hiring these corporations to construct these AI technique paperwork, 165 pages of lovely PowerPoints, proper?” she mentioned. However these corporations nonetheless cannot “operationalize” AI, she mentioned. “Why? As a result of the fundamental infrastructure is not there. Any sort of vulnerability that they’ve in safety, their cloud infrastructure, is simply exacerbated by AI.”
Ultimately, shoppers selected consultants primarily based on belief, their networks, and present enterprise relationships, she mentioned.
“I actually imagine {that a} true associate is one who’s going to inform you the reality. Inform it like it’s even when it hurts proper?” Schmitter mentioned. To that finish, she mentioned she asks shoppers who come to her about AI technique to have a strong grasp of their infrastructure footprint, knowledge governance insurance policies, and safety earlier than they speed up adoption.
The underside line is that Fusion Collective likes to maintain its recommendation actual. “If corporations haven’t mastered the basics, you are not prepared for AI, and you are not prepared for a military of consultants to return in to do stuff,” Schmitter mentioned.
Slideworks
Slideworks is not essentially going after consulting corporations’ enterprise, although it focuses on one thing lots of the huge guys are recognized for: making highly effective slides.
Slideworks gives what it calls “high-end” PowerPoint templates and “toolkits” created by former consultants for Bain, BCG, and McKinsey.
While you work as a guide at a top-tier agency, “you’re schooled every single day in finest follow shows and slide design,” the corporate says on its web site. The concept is to supply entry to a library of slides and spreadsheets for areas together with technique, provide chain administration, and “digital transformation.”
In a February weblog submit, Alexandra Hazard Kampmann, a Slideworks associate, wrote that “administration consultants are sometimes made enjoyable of as ‘slide monkeys.'” But, she added, the slide is a “essential purpose” why McKinsey and BCG consultants have so many Fortune 500 corporations as shoppers.
Slideworks gives a “consulting toolkit,” which comprises 205 slides and prices $129. It additionally gives a “consulting proposal,” which has 242 slides plus an Excel mannequin and prices $149.
There are additionally operations, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise technique, and product technique templates.
Slideworks says it has greater than 4,500 prospects globally, together with Coca-Cola, Pfizer, and the professional-services corporations Deloitte and EY.
Unity Advisory
Some high UK executives from Ernst & Young and PwC are becoming a member of forces to launch a brand new agency known as Unity Advisory in June, the Monetary Occasions reported. The agency will likely be chaired by Steve Varley, who spent practically 19 years at EY, and led by CEO Marissa Thomas, who labored at PwC for over 30 years, in accordance with their LinkedIn profiles.
It’s backed by as much as $300 million from Warburg Pincus, a personal fairness agency, and can concentrate on tax and accounting providers, know-how consulting, and mergers and acquisitions.
“CFOs are open to a brand new proposition,” Varley instructed the FT. “The Massive 4 are a cultured bunch of service suppliers, however individuals are on the lookout for a proposition that’s tremendous client-centric, has actually low administrative value, is AI-led reasonably than primarily based on legacy infrastructure and, crucially, has no conflicts.”
Correction: An earlier model of this text misstated the month-to-month pricing for Consulting IQ. It begins at $99 monthly, not $9. It additionally misstated the agency’s partnership with JP Morgan, which is its major working financial institution.
