McKinsey consultants' use of PowerPoint has dropped sharply, an executive says.
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Working on consulting projects has long involved creating slides — lots and lots of slides.At McKinsey, AI has allowed consultants to pare back their reliance on PowerPoint.Kate Smaje, McKinsey's Global Leader for technology and AI, told Business Insider that she's seen usage of PowerPoint drop massively within a couple of months as employees have begun vibe-coding with AI tools — both in the number of presentations they're creating and time spent using the program.Beyond client presentations, consultants often use PowerPoint as a project-management tool: a working deck that serves as a running compendium of recent research and next steps, and is sent to clients at each week's close.One McKinsey consultant has created a new approach: an AI-assisted website that acts as a central project hub for clients and the McKinsey team.Louis-Charles Généreux, an engagement manager at McKinsey, built the website, which he calls the "client visualization hub," for his current project with a North American cable company.The project involves about 70 people who need to stay informed in real time. Previously, Généreux would have managed that through the slide deck approach. But it wasn't without its problems, he said.
