PwC partners who fail to embrace AI have no future at firm, US CEO warns

The US boss of PricewaterhouseCoopers has warned that partners who do not get to grips with AI have no future at the consulting firm.Paul Griggs said senior staff who were not “paranoid about being AI-first” would probably be replaced by others who were ready to embrace the technology. “I don’t think anyone gets a free pass here. Anyone,” Griggs told the Financial Times.An employee who thinks they have the “opportunity to opt out” of AI is “not going to be here that long”, Griggs added.Consulting is one of many white-collar industries that experts believe are in the firing line of advances in AI, owing to the technology’s ability to automate work related to such tasks as accounting, research and analysing business problems.However, data also shows that big consulting groups such as PwC, Accenture and McKinsey are benefiting from clients seeking help in implementing AI across their businesses. K2 Consulting Research, which monitors the industry, has said global consulting grew 5.5% in 2025, a doubling of the previous year’s growth rate.Griggs said PwC’s employment strategy had changed as AI altered its working practices, but that the firm remained “a net acquirer of talent at this point of time”.“Am I recruiting the same number of accountants and traditional consultants vis-a-vis engineers, on a proportionate basis, that I was three years ago? No,” he said.Griggs added that PwC was hiring more data specialists. Last year the firm cut staff numbers by 5,600, taking its number of global employees to fewer than 365,000.Griggs told the FT that PwC would change some tax and consulting services into AI-powered automated tools that could be paid for with an annual subscription. Traditionally, consultancies bill clients based on the number of hours worked on their projects. The new tax and consulting tools could be accessed “without a PwC person in the loop”, Griggs said.PwC is launching “PwC One”, an AI platform that offers six automated services for clients, including an “anomaly detector” that can detect flaws in a company’s sustainability data.Griggs said the move to automation could result in new pricing models for the industry and broaden the market for services offered by the big four consulting and accounting firms: PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG. “Over time, it will move more and more of our work to outcomes pricing, which I believe our clients will readily accept because, ultimately, the only thing our clients care about is the outcome delivered,” he said.