👉 Background: McKinsey is one of the world’s most powerful consulting firms advising many of the top companies and biggest governments in the world on all the buzzwords under the sun - we’re talking 'digital strategies', 'transformation projects' and 'synergy levers'.

👉 What happened: Now, McKinsey has “boiled the ocean” to find the “low-hanging fruit” and it has cut around 5,000 staff since late 2022 — its biggest workforce reductions in its 100-year history The reason? McKinsey has a new employee and developed an in-house AI assistance called Lilli who has taken over tasks that junior-burgers used to do.

👉 What else: It's now being described as “a team member” on every consulting team and over 75% of McKinsey employees use it monthly for tasks that were once entry-level jobs. And unlike the staff, Lilli ain’t bugging for a promotion! The biggest cohort suffering? Entry level employees.

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What's the key learning?

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💡AI could replace grad jobs very soon. In major consulting houses, there is a classic path from analyst to partner and it relies on a very deliberate apprenticeship model. You start by doing research, building decks, and triple-checking data at 2am. But with AI taking over that grunt work, that entry-level training ground is vanishing.

💡Many of the tasks that helped junior staff build skills are now being automated. And, that’s a double-edged sword:

• On one hand, new hires can skip to more strategic or creative work
• On the other hand, they might miss out on the basics…or not even get a job in the first place

💡In fact, it was actually a McKinsey report that estimates between 400 million and 800 million jobs worldwide could be displaced by AI by 2030. The irony!