The firm that invented the slide deck is quietly killing it — the McKinsey AI PowerPoint reduction is real, and it started from the inside.
The McKinsey AI PowerPoint reduction is the most symbolic tech story in consulting right now. According to Business Insider, the firm’s consultants are using AI to end their dependence on PowerPoint — the very artifact McKinsey turned into a global business language. Searches for the story have gone breakout this week, and the details explain why.
What the McKinsey AI PowerPoint Reduction Actually Means
Kate Smaje, McKinsey’s global leader for technology and AI, told Business Insider she has observed a rapid drop in slide-deck use across the firm. Instead of living in PowerPoint all day, consultants increasingly build project assets directly inside AI tools.
Consequently, PowerPoint is shifting from the daily workspace to a final output — something generated at the end for a meeting, an email or a memo. The analysis itself now happens elsewhere.
The McKinsey AI Consulting Shift: A Hub Instead of a Running Deck
The story’s best example comes from engagement manager Louis-Charles Généreux. For a North American cable project involving roughly 70 people, he built an AI-assisted ‘client visualization hub’ instead of maintaining a running PowerPoint deck.
The hub centralizes the latest work, improves searchability and version control, and — according to Généreux — saves real time. In other words, the deck stopped being the project’s single source of truth.
‘Do We Need Armies of Analysts Creating PowerPoints? No’
Smaje has been blunt about where this leads. ‘Do we need armies of business analysts creating PowerPoints? No, the technology could do that,’ she told Bloomberg when the firm first detailed its AI push.
However, she framed it as a shift rather than a purge: analysts will not necessarily disappear, but their work moves toward ‘the things that are more valuable to our clients’. The deck-making, meanwhile, goes to the machines.
McKinsey Lilli AI: The Engine of the PowerPoint Reduction
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Frequently Asked Questions:
Why is McKinsey reducing PowerPoint use?
Because AI tools became the working environment. Consultants build analysis and project assets directly in AI platforms like Lilli, so PowerPoint is increasingly just the final export format — per Business Insider, slide-deck use has dropped rapidly.
What is McKinsey's Lilli AI?
Lilli is McKinsey’s internal generative AI platform, live since July 2023. It can generate PowerPoint slides from a prompt, match the firm’s writing style with a Tone of Voice tool, and is used by about 72 percent of the firm.
What is the McKinsey client visualization hub?
An AI-assisted project hub that engagement manager Louis-Charles Genereux built for a roughly 70-person cable project. It centralizes the latest work with better search and version control, replacing a constantly updated PowerPoint deck.
How many AI agents does McKinsey have?
Global managing partner Bob Sternfels described the workforce as 40,000 humans plus roughly 25,000 AI agents, up from about 3,000 agents 18 months earlier — and tech lead Kate Smaje says the number keeps multiplying.
Is AI replacing McKinsey analysts?
McKinsey says no — the firm frames it as augmentation. Kate Smaje told Bloomberg analysts will shift to work that is ‘more valuable to our clients’ while the technology handles deck production.
How is McKinsey using AI day to day?
Consultants use Lilli to search and synthesize firm knowledge (with up to 30 percent time savings), draft proposals, generate slides on demand, and run AI agents for analysis — making AI the default workspace instead of PowerPoint.
*Sources: Business Insider (via AOL), Bloomberg, Fortune, McKinsey, Entrepreneur.*
