Why consulting giants aren’t quaking at Anthropic’s new AI venture

But while general consulting and advisory were in the red, mandatory regulatory work and specialised AI and tech transformation advice drove the growth. ​But it is not just these firms. The same is happening at the MBB firms, as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reported in April that its global firm reached $14.4bn (£10.6bn), a single-digit increase over the previous year and credited AI for the small growth.​ As a result, the traditional market has shifted its narrative to be labelled as technology firms, following on the heels of Accenture, Capgemini and IBM. ​But these firms rely on bridging complex technology and corporate clients, and now the world’s largest AI provider is in the competing pool. ​Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “AI is coming for everything. This is Anthropic parking its tanks on the European consultancy lawn, and it will probably find itself inundated with potential customers.”​ Tech giant eyes IPO with losses ​But what is in it for Anthropic? The plan is for this arm to generate new revenue streams and offset some of its high data centre, compute and infrastructure costs. ​The US tech giant’s anticipated market value is between $1.5tn and $2tn ahead of its long-awaited IPO, but on Monday it also revealed billions of dollars in losses. He said: “Consultants want a multi-decade relationship with clients, and private equity is all about pushing EBITDA results and having an exit after three to five years.” An in-house sales machine? Anthropic’s move is not new. Technology firms have launched consulting practices before, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers in the 1990s, to improve implementation quality and help address skills shortages. ​Fiona Czerniawska, founder and CEO of Source Global Research, explained that Anthropic’s business model appears to bet on a substantial market for AI consulting and on embedding AI engineers within client organisations. ​“I think [businesses] producing actual stuff, which gives them a chance to outmanoeuvre the big consulting firms, but it’s all about a search for profits,” she said. ​But what will clients want? A consultancy built by a technology vendor, such as Anthropic, can’t offer genuine independent advice to C-level executives. As experts said, it may end up functioning as an in-house sales tool for the tech giant. ​“What consulting firms are bringing here is not so much independence, but the ability to deploy each of them, depending on what the client wants to see… that makes it harder for Anthropic to develop relationships with clients,” Czerniawska added. ​Professional services firms have also increased their focus on human judgment and people skills as AI expands across the business world.