Global top consulting giant McKinsey & Company is completely reshaping its talent landscape. Recently, Bob Sternfels, a global managing partner at McKinsey, revealed that the company now has a total of 60,000 employees, but surprisingly, only 40,000 are human employees, with the remaining 25,000 being "AI agents" capable of performing tasks independently.
This transformation has happened rapidly. Sternfels stated that just one and a half years ago, McKinsey used only a few thousand AI agents. His goal is to ensure that each human employee at the company will have at least one or more "AI partners" working collaboratively within the next year and a half. These agents are no longer simple tools of assistance; they can independently break down problems, develop plans, and take actions without repeated instructions from humans.
Currently, a team of 1,700 people at QuantumBlack is leading all of McKinsey's AI projects, and related business has accounted for 40% of the company's total workload. With the deep integration of AI, McKinsey's business model is also undergoing a fundamental change. The company is moving away from traditional service-based billing models towards a new model where business goals are jointly determined with clients, and risks and profits are shared based on the final outcomes.
This "human-machine collaboration" model has also changed McKinsey's hiring criteria. The company now favors cross-disciplinary talents who understand traditional consulting logic as well as engineering thinking, and who can deeply integrate with AI technology. For McKinsey, AI is not only an efficiency tool, but also a core weapon to maintain its competitive advantage in the consulting industry.
Key points:
🤖 Major change in workforce composition: In McKinsey's 60,000 employees, AI agents already account for more than 40%, becoming an indispensable "digital employee."
📈 Business model reshaping: McKinsey is moving away from traditional time-based billing models and shifting toward a new model driven by AI transformation and value sharing based on business outcomes.
🎓 Shift in talent demand: The company is seeking and cultivating "composite engineers" who have both consulting expertise and the ability to skillfully use AI technology.
