Boston Consulting Group’s revenue rose 7% to $14.4 billion in its latest fiscal year, with headcount expanding, as CEO Christoph Schweizer pushed back against predictions that artificial intelligence is making management consultants obsolete.
“Look at the business,” Schweizer said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal. The 53-year-old German executive, who was re-elected in 2025 to his second four-year term, said companies have a near “infinite need” for help rolling out AI, and BCG is rushing to meet it.
1.7 million applicants, fewer than 1% hired — and BCG says junior talent is more valuable than ever
Schweizer said BCG finished 2025 with more employees than it started and has not cut junior hiring despite AI. Last year, 1.7 million people applied to BCG, with fewer than 1% ultimately joining.
“We are blown away about the junior talent we can hire,” he said. “They are so AI native, they use these tools as if the world had never existed without them.”
In June, the firm’s 33,500 employees begin a four-phase AI certification programme developed in-house. Schweizer said the programme is designed to keep staff current on a technology that is now central to client work.
3 in 4 of BCG’s largest AI engagements now carry variable fees tied to client outcomes
AI has also changed how BCG gets paid. On its largest AI engagements, the firm has moved away from traditional fixed fees toward arrangements where payment depends on whether clients achieve specific goals — lower costs or higher revenue growth.
“For the majority (three quarters) of our largest AI cases, we now have a variable-fee arrangement,” Schweizer said. Across BCG’s broader portfolio, outcome-based pricing accounts for significantly less than a third of work.
Schweizer noted this model is not entirely new (his first case as a partner was a variable-fee arrangement) but said the scale and novelty of AI transformation has accelerated its adoption. BCG’s focus, he said, is ensuring clients “don’t just drive token consumption, but you actually see changes in the P&L and in how people work.”
Schweizer: Anthropic-Blackstone venture is not a competitive threat to BCG
Asked whether Anthropic’s joint venture with Blackstone to sell AI tools directly to companies poses a threat, Schweizer said it does not.
“There is enormous demand for deploying AI at scale, and there is not nearly enough capacity of people who can support that,” he said. “That’s not really what we do: We help companies reshape functions or the entire company. We help them redesign workflows and upskill their organisation. I don’t think that this is a competitive situation.”
BCG has partnerships with both OpenAI and Anthropic.
