- Boston Consulting Group is investing heavily in AI product research and development, positioning it as a new pillar of growth.
- According to partner Scott Wilder, BCG has built tens of thousands of custom AI agents for client projects in just 15 months.
- BCG has established an internal R&D unit to standardize and scale AI tools created by frontline consultants.
- The core philosophy is: “Every company has to become a tech company,” and BCG is no exception.
- The innovation model operates across three layers: the data layer, the consultant-built tools layer, and the leadership-developed strategic tools layer.
- At the data layer, BCG builds MCP servers and AI agents on selected internal and public data to automatically retrieve the right data at the right time.
- The middle layer is where consultants engage in “vibe-coding,” creating agents for clients; successful tools are brought back into R&D for standardization.
- The top layer includes company-wide products such as Deckster (slide creation from 800–900 templates), Ava (IT and HR support), and GENE (communications chatbot).
- BCG operates around 7–8 strategic tools at the enterprise level.
- A team of “forward-deployed consultants,” inspired by Palantir, plays a critical role in creating reusable tools.
- BCG describes itself as the world’s largest creator of custom GPTs, with approximately 36,000 GPTs built.
- Every tool must undergo red teaming, legal, security, and privacy reviews before being added to the internal marketplace.
- An orchestration agent helps employees select the appropriate tools and data.
- Roughly 80% of GPTs originate from the frontline, reflecting a bottom-up innovation model.
- An “enablement” network of around 1,000 people trains staff on AI and gathers company-wide feedback.
- BCG operates like a full product organization, with product owners, a UX Center of Excellence, and a centralized crowdsourcing pipeline.
📌 BCG is transforming from a strategy consulting firm into an “AI product factory,” with more than 36,000 agents and a bottom-up innovation model. The combination of frontline consultants, centralized R&D, and strict risk controls shows that AI is no longer experimental. With the message “every company must become a tech company,” BCG is turning itself into a living proof of that strategy.
