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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Welcome back to Breakfast Business with me, Tom McEnany, standing in for Joe Lynham.
Chapter 2: How is AI changing the consultancy sector?
Now, artificial intelligence is increasingly changing the way work is delivered in the professional services sector, as well as the expectations of clients. But does it pose an existential threat to the consultancy sector, at least in its current form? Joining me now to answer this question is Harry Goddard, CEO of Deloitte in Ireland. Good morning, Harry. Morning, Tom. How are you?
I'm not too bad. I'm not too bad. I do very well. The Harry AI story that we keep a very close eye on in this programme, a lot of consultancy firms around the world have said or have seen that AI is certainly augmenting some consultants, but is replacing some junior consultants with some reports suggesting that consultancy firms are hiring one third fewer staff. Is this the case at Deloitte?
First of all, thanks very much for the opportunity to talk to you about this. It's a really exciting topic. AI has been a feature of the consulting environment for probably 15, 20 years. But I think it's really with ChatGPT that it's really captured people's imagination.
And the thing that's most significant about AI is the pace of change as opposed to just necessarily the capability of the technology. In a professional services environment, we're a knowledge economy, in effect, and ChatGPT, generative AI, really plays into providing greater access to knowledge in a much more consumable and accessible format.
And it's also, my understanding, Arthur... From what I have read, the consultancy business, it's often compared to a pyramid. You've got all these people at the bottom, the new recruits, the graduates who are doing the research, the grunt work, the grind work, and they feed into people who are higher up and they're doing the more important executive and often client-facing work.
Presumably with ChatGPT doing a lot of the research and analysis, consultancy firms at the very least need fewer of those people at the bottom of the pyramid.
I think that's to be proven, to be honest with you, Tom. I think at a very practical level, what we're seeing is that technologies, and we wouldn't use necessarily any one particular vendor's technology because we would adopt any of these existing Gen AI platforms internally. But what we're seeing is it's an accelerant to our people.
And what's critically important for us as we deploy the technology internally is that our people are able to use it effectively, that we continue to be able to bring that same degree of trust and confidence in the services that we provide into the marketplace. And what we're at a very practical level experiencing is, I'll give you a very practical example.
We're using AI technology in the deployment of technology solutions. We have one very specific example of a use case that would typically take about 3,000 hours. Now it takes about eight minutes. So real value to our clients, but also in terms of our people, it's really accelerating their ability to be more productive, more effective.
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Chapter 3: Is AI replacing junior consultants in firms like Deloitte?
And presumably that's going to be one of the key differentiators between different consultancy businesses.
Absolutely. And as the largest professional services in the world, we are undertaking what is probably one of the largest transformation programmes in the world as we seek to transform our organisation to embed technology in how we serve our clients in the marketplace.
ensure that our people are equipped to take advantage of that effectively, and also support our clients as they go through this transition as well.
Now, as a consultancy firm, presumably, I've seen, particularly in America, that consultancy businesses are now having to compete with AI native consultancy companies. Are you finding that in Ireland?
Not really to any significant extent. Certainly there is a proliferation of AI native organisations which are evolving. But I think I will be cautious about the pace with which we can adopt this technology in a very commercial way. Trust is still a key issue. Insight into an organisation and relationships, they continue to be critical issues that clients depend on us for.
OK, if I am a client and I'm regularly engaging with a consulting firm, what differences am I going to notice? I think some of the differences that you'll notice are very... Apart from that reduced bill, Harry, don't forget the reduced bill. But what other differences shall I notice?
I think one of the key differences is the pace with which we are able to turn around deliverables. So the pace with which we can produce, whether it's the initial report or the final report, the quality of those reports will also change. But a large part of this transition for our firm is going to involve changing how we work with our clients, as you quite rightly point out.
That's the journey that we're on currently. And we're seeing already that we've got to change the work within our organisation as we change that relationship with our client.
OK, and that's Harry Goddard, head of Deloitte Ireland. Thanks for joining us this morning.
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