The global consulting industry, already slowed by weaker markets in the U.K., China, Saudi Arabia and Australia, is now facing a new test from within: former consultants teaching artificial intelligence how to do their work.
Roughly 150 ex-consultants from McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group have been hired under a program called Project Argentum, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing documents from the program. The initiative is run by Mercor, an AI-driven hiring startup that previously helped staff a similar effort to train OpenAI’s models on investment banking tasks.
Argentum’s participants are helping AI systems, including Google’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Gemini, learn to perform consulting fundamentals such as market analysis, financial modeling, and presentation writing. Applicants complete an AI-based interview, and successful hires are paid about $110 an hour for up to 19 hours weekly, the documents indicate.
The project highlights the consulting sector’s uneasy relationship with automation. As firms cut costs and client demand cools, many — including McKinsey, which uses its internal platform “Lilli” for slide decks and proposals — are integrating generative AI into daily operations.
While AI could help consultants handle routine work more efficiently, the same technology may eventually let clients bypass firms altogether for basic analytical tasks once handled by junior staff.
Mercor’s online job posting describes Argentum as a “long-term collaboration with a leading AI lab” aimed at enhancing model performance on consulting-related projects. Participants must follow strict guidelines to ensure professional-quality writing and data accuracy.
The effort underscores how quickly AI is moving beyond experimentation to absorb high-skill professional workflows, potentially redefining what entry-level consulting looks like in the years ahead, Bloomberg News reported.