Deloitte principal says consultants have to 'take an engineering first mindset' amid AI disruption in the industry

• Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner said the firm is shifting to an engineering-first mindset.
• Wanner said consultants need to be using generative AI to automate tasks.
• Deloitte has unveiled several AI-powered tools over the past year as it makes a cultural shift.

The modern consulting playbook may be evolving from spreadsheets and Powerpoints.

In a Wednesday panel at Nvidia's GTC conference about empowering the federal workforce with AI, Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner said the consulting industry as a whole is being "disrupted" amid AI transformations.

"It is no longer acceptable at Deloitte to not take an engineering first mindset," Wanner, who helps lead AI staff development at Deloitte, said. As the industry shifts, Deloitte employees need to act as "technologists and engineers first," and "consultants second."

Deloitte is one among several big consulting firms that's invested billions into transforming itself — and its clients — with generative AI in recent years.

The firm is one of the main providers for the federal government, which spends billions each year on consulting services. It brings in about $3.3 billion annually in federal contracts — slightly under 10% of its annual revenue for the 2024 fiscal year.

Wanner said she's seen a significant acceleration and adoption of generative AI among Deloitte's federal clients within the past six to twelve months.

"There has been a wholehearted embrace of rethinking about what are the things we do today that require intensive, manual, rote steps," she said. Whether those are administrative tasks or ones that involve documentation, Wanner said, "we can start to immediately empower agents, or generative AI solutions, or platforms, that can start to automate a lot of these functions."

She added, "There's a significant amount of low-hanging fruit that could translate into some pretty significant value."

In recent years, Deloitte has introduced a suite of AI-powered tools to help workers make this shift.

In 2023, it introduced an internal chatbot called "DARTbot" capable of "generating intelligent responses and providing valuable insights" to assist the firm's nearly 18,000 Audit & Assurance professionals in the US. The company also said it was introducing "purpose-specific" large language models and chatbots to help support specialized teams. Last January, it also unveiled "NavigAite" a generative AI tool to help with tasks like document summarization and review.

That same month, for its 75,000 staff members in the Middle East, Europe, and UK, it also rolled out an internal AI chatbot to help staff automate tasks like writing emails and creating project plans.

The consultancy has partnered with Nvidia to deploy digital AI agents. It also announced on Tuesday it will be collaborating with the chipmaker on its new reasoning models and software.

Deloitte did not respond to a request for comment.