The business landscape has recently witnessed a transformative shift, with Generative AI taking center stage. Leading consulting firms, such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and McKinsey, are at the forefront of this revolution, harnessing the power of AI to enhance their operations and deliver unparalleled results.

Source: Business Consulting Group
BCG’s Generative AI Impact
BCG’s recent experiment with Generative AI, particularly with GPT-4, yielded impressive outcomes. Consultants equipped with this advanced AI tool accomplished 12.2% more tasks, executed them 25.1% faster, and produced results of 40% higher quality. Such statistics underscore the immense potential of Generative AI in reshaping industries and setting new benchmarks for efficiency and quality.
McKinsey’s AI Innovation: Lilli
Not to be outdone, McKinsey introduced its proprietary generative AI tool, “Lilli.” This chat application, trained on over 100,000 internal documents and interview transcripts, has been a game-changer. Within its beta phase, Lilli has drastically reduced research and planning durations, with some tasks now taking mere minutes. Astonishingly, 66% of McKinsey employees utilize Lilli multiple times weekly, and in just the first half of August, the tool responded to 50,000 queries.
Despite the technical challenges, McKinsey’s decision to develop an in-house solution was driven by costs, reliability, and security. Their approach leverages technologies from Cohere and the OpenAI Microsoft Azure service, emphasizing their “LLM agnostic” stance. For McKinsey, choosing LLM is secondary to achieving their business objectives.
The Future of AI in Business
The rapid adoption and success of AI tools like Lilli highlight a crucial trend: the commoditization of models. In this new era, the natural competitive edge lies in data, documentation, and knowledge bases. These information repositories are as vital to AI progress as Foundation Models and LLMs. For businesses, especially startups, to thrive, they must prioritize building robust knowledge bases and ensuring easy access to the correct information at the right time.
Concluding Thoughts:
- Reasons for AI’s Dominance in Business:
- Efficiency: AI tools expedite tasks, reducing research and planning time.
- Quality: Enhanced accuracy and quality of results.
- Data Utilization: Leveraging vast data repositories for informed decision-making.
- Tips for Businesses:
- Invest in Knowledge Bases: Prioritize building and maintaining comprehensive knowledge repositories.
- Stay Agile: Be prepared to adapt and integrate new technologies as they emerge.
- Focus on Security: Ensure that AI tools and data repositories are secure, especially when handling proprietary information.
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