The rise of the AI knock-off McKinsey consultant (www.businessinsider.com)

A new trend in the AI landscape sees developers creating open-source "skills" that allow AI agents to perform tasks typically associated with traditional consulting firms, like McKinsey. Vercel, an AI startup, has launched a skills library with nearly 90,000 reusable capabilities, including a notable "mckinsey-consultant" skill designed to assist in problem definition, hypothesis generation, and structured analysis. This development follows Anthropic's introduction of skills for its chatbot Claude, igniting interest among developers to create and share these capabilities for various AI systems. The McKinsey-style agent has garnered significant traction, averaging 445 installs per week and receiving positive feedback on GitHub. Though these AI tools can replicate certain workflows, experts argue they lack the nuanced conversational skills and critical questioning that define high-value consulting work. As noted by former McKinsey consultant Arvind Vasudevan, the AI agents do not engage in the deep thinking or contextual understanding that human consultants provide, which often leads to actionable insights. Companies like PromptQL are leveraging this gap by developing AI analysts capable of learning and adapting from internal company data, offering a more grounded approach to business analysis. Ultimately, while the rise of AI consultants may offer efficiency, the essence of strategic consulting—judgment and contextual understanding—remains a challenge for AI to fully emulate.