It is no coincidence that McKinsey acquired the AI service provider QuantumBlack in 2015. Because AI brings real competition to consultancies. Especially the big cloud providers are on the market and offer off-the-shelf solutions that almost anyone can put together with just a few clicks to perform the most complex analyses quickly and reproducibly. We'll tell you more in this post!
Big data market size revenue forecast worldwide from 2011 to 2027 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Cloud computing providers conquer the market
The fact that data-driven business models have incomprehensible growth curves is no longer a secret. Everyone is talking about AI in particular. The presumed influence of AI on tomorrow's employment is increasingly being realized. AI will cause massive changes, especially in the knowledge-intensive industries.
Today's market leaders are the large cloud providers: Amazon, Google and Microsoft. All three companies already offer models with which corporate customers can build AI-enabled systems. With Amazon Rekognition, for example, you could implement a service in just a few clicks that you could use to classify images and videos.
What is Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the provision of computing services (servers, storage, databases, network components, software, analysis options and more) over the Internet. Increasingly, in addition to pure storage options, self-contained computing models are being offered which are available to the respective customer at the push of a button. The pricing of the providers is usually based purely on consumption and functions more or less like a water meter. Cloud computing is already a huge market with a volume of 300 billion dollars and strong competition.
At first glance, an image classification like the one described above may not necessarily be of interest to you. But the use cases are manifold. With the help of Microsoft's Toolset, Uber has developed a system that scans the faces of drivers to confirm their identity when they start a shift. These and other achievements were more or less science fiction a decade ago.
But the providers of cloud solutions not only have models ready at the push of a button, they also have broad access to the industry. On average, 65% of all German companies already use cloud solutions today. Cross-selling is on the table.
And what does that have to do with consultants?
The complex analyses are not only applicable for the more technical cases. As an end user, you don't necessarily have to classify images or create intelligent chatbots. Perhaps you are much more interested in which factors determine your sales? Or do you want to predict credit default rates? Payment morale? Stock levels? With the available click-and-point models, you can compile even the most complex analyses and forecasts in just a few steps. A domain that is primarily reserved for consultants - or rather was.
It's not surprising that from major strategy consultancies to audit firms, everyone is looking for new AI staff. It remains to be seen how the market will develop. One thing is clear: the democratization of AI by the large cloud computing providers is making life increasingly difficult for consultants.
We also deal with AI on a daily basis and work intensively on its implementation in Falcon! Our blog will tell you more. Read for yourself!