General Tech
Business Insiderabout 2 hours ago
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Are you a consultant? Tell us how much you're spending on AI these days.

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Consulting firms and their clients are rethinking AI spending as costs rise, moving from freewheeling investment to more strategic allocation.

Are you a consultant? Tell us how much you're spending on AI these days.

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The Big Picture
The era of unchecked AI spending may be ending as companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Uber recalibrate their AI budgets. Consulting firms, which initially saw AI as both a threat and an opportunity, are now helping clients measure returns and set limits. For instance, KPMG tracks AI tool usage internally, while McKinsey deploys 25,000 AI agents alongside human staff. Despite concerns, BCG reports that companies expect to double AI spending in 2026 to 1.7% of revenue, but with a focus on strategic investment rather than indiscriminate spending. The shift reflects a broader industry realization that AI costs must be justified by tangible value.
Why It Matters
This article signals a critical inflection point in enterprise AI adoption: the shift from experimental, open-ended spending to disciplined, ROI-driven investment. As major firms like Amazon, Walmart, and Uber impose usage limits and demand measurable value, the consulting industry—which both advises clients and uses AI internally—must lead by example. The outcome will determine whether AI becomes a sustainable productivity tool or a costly bubble, influencing how billions of dollars are allocated across the global economy.

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A consultant in an orange blazer uses a laptop while holding a clipboard at a desk.
A consultant in an orange blazer uses a laptop while holding a clipboard at a desk.
Many companies, and the consulting firms advising them, are reevaluating how much the spend on AI.

Getty Images; BI

  • The age of freewheeling AI spending may be coming to an end.
  • Consulting firms are rethinking how much they, and their clients, spend on AI.
  • Tell us how spending at your consulting firm has changed.

Companies are learning that there's such a thing as spending too much on AI.

As the cost of AI tools grows, executives are recalibrating. Amazon recently removed its employee-made leaderboard for tracking AI token usage because it encouraged excessive spending. Walmart, which developed a vibe-coding tool for employees, recently set limits on the use of tokens. Uber COO Andrew MacDonald said it's hard to justify the money his company is spending on AI.

Cisco Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel also pushed back on the cost of tokens. He said at an event recently that the price is "far higher than the actual value these tokens are generating at scale."

For the consulting industry, the rise of AI was a near-existential threat. At first glance, chatbots can do a lot of the work of consultants, particularly those early in their careers. Most firms moved quickly to attract clients who needed help integrating the technology into their own companies. And they quickly adopted it themselves.

KPMG, for example, has built a dashboard to track how often employees in its US advisory division use AI tools, part of a broader effort to move from basic adoption to more sophisticated use. McKinsey plans to go further. CEO Bob Sternfels said in January that the firm uses roughly 25,000 AI agents alongside its 40,000 human employees, and hopes one or more agents will eventually support every employee.

The surge in spending, however, has raised a question: Are companies investing in AI strategically or simply spending to avoid being left behind? It's something consulting firms are working to answer for both their clients and themselves.

Tell us how AI spending has changed at your consulting firm:

For now, the answer appears to be: keep spending, but more strategically.

In a recent report on corporate AI investment, Boston Consulting Group found that companies expect to more than double their AI spending in 2026, from roughly 0.8% of revenue to about 1.7%. For large enterprises, that shift represents billions of dollars flowing into AI strategies that remain, in many cases, experimental and difficult to measure.

Russell Fradin, CEO and cofounder of Larridin, a platform that helps companies — including major consulting firms — measure the returns on AI usage, said the spending trend will continue.

"We haven't seen anyone talking about spending less in AI next year," Fradin told Business Insider. "They're just talking about instrumenting to understand where it goes."

Companies, Fradin said, are coming to the consensus that they "can't 10x spend every year forever."

Read the original article on Business Insider
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