AI made consultants 25% faster on some tasks and 19 points more wrong on others
Summary of Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge, 22 November 2023Source read
In a field experiment with Boston Consulting Group, consultants using AI on suitable tasks finished 12% more work, 25% faster, at quality rated 40% higher. On a harder task that needed judgement, those using AI were 19 percentage points less likely to reach the right answer. Below-median performers improved 43%, top performers 17%.
- 25%
- faster on tasks AI handles well
- -19 pts
- chance of a correct answer on a task outside its reach
- 43%
- gain for below-median performers, against 17% for the top
What it means for a small firm
Knowing which jobs to hand over is the skill. We map the tasks before we touch a tool, because the wrong task costs more than no tool at all.
Original source
Humans vs. Machines: Untangling the Tasks AI Can (and Can't) Handle
Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge
This page is our own summary, written 23 October 2026. The figures belong to the publisher. We checked them against the publisher’s page on the date above.