德勤内部警告：AI将冲击按小时计费模式
阅读原文· the-decoder.com德勤经理在内部全员会上警告，AI将大幅压缩传统按小时计费的咨询模式。预计到2035年，AI智能体将占据专业服务市场大部分份额，引发员工“被机器人取代”的担忧。行业被迫转向固定价格和按成果付费模式，但转型伴随财务风险——项目超支时公司需自行承担成本。据《华尔街日报》报道，德勤美国公共部门咨询负责人Jason Manstof上月展示的图表显示，按小时计费业务到2035年将萎缩至市场一小部分。麦肯锡全球收费中已有超30%来自成果导向模式，波士顿咨询公司也在加速推进类似定价模型。
Deloitte tells its own consultants: AI is coming for the billable hour
Key Points
- A Deloitte manager warned internally that AI will drastically shrink the classic hourly billing model in consulting.
- By 2035, AI agents are expected to take over most of the market, fueling fears among staff of being replaced by robots.
- The industry is shifting to fixed-price and outcome-based models out of necessity, but the transition carries serious financial risks.
An internal town hall at Deloitte stirred up frustration among the firm's own consultants. Management's message: the classic hourly billing model is under massive pressure in the age of AI.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Jason Manstof, a leader in Deloitte's US public sector consulting division, showed a chart last month projecting the decline of hours-based consulting work through 2035. The green bar at the bottom, representing the industry's bread and butter, shrinks to a thin sliver of the total market.
"The not-so-great news is that type of work, even though still a significant part in 2035, will only be a part of the overall picture," Manstof said during the webcast, which the WSJ was able to review. AI agents, still in their early stages, would grow exponentially and make up the majority of the expanding professional services market by 2035.
One Deloitte consultant summed up the event for the WSJ: "They heavily implied our model is toast. We're basically getting replaced by robots." A Deloitte spokesperson said the company is making "significant investments to lead this human-led, AI-powered shift for our industry."
Letting go of the billable hour is easier said than done
The consulting industry is trying to reinvent itself by acting more like a software or product business. Instead of renting out human labor by the hour, firms want to sell fixed-price subscriptions or flat-rate solutions. But the shift is bumpy. When projects run longer than planned, firms eat the costs. Payments get unpredictable. Cash flow problems loom. Disputes over subjective success metrics can wreck client relationships.
McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group are pushing harder toward outcome-based pricing models. More than 30 percent of McKinsey's global fees already come from such models, according to senior partner Shelley Stewart III, the WSJ reports. Pat Petitti, CEO of AI consulting platform Catalant, doesn't see this as a philosophical choice, though. He calls it an "existential scramble" for new revenue models: "AI is destroying their business model."