In 2025, Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG finally stopped doing what most large organizations still do with AI. Admire it politely, park it in a pilot, and promise to “scale next year.” 

Instead, they handed AI the keys. Or at least let it ride shotgun. 

According to Business Insider, “How AI changed the Big Four’s workflow, hiring, and jobs in 2025” the Big Four embedded AI agents directly into client delivery and internal workflows, reshaping how work gets done, who does it, and how it’s priced. This was not a digital transformation. It was an identity shift. 

For innovation leaders, the takeaway is not “we should use more AI.” That is table stakes. The real lesson is this. AI is no longer an initiative. It is an operating condition. 

I’m grateful that innovation leaders from all of the Big 4 have been on my podcast and some have even been clients. I see how AI is transforming business.
 

First: AI agents became coworkers, the tireless kind. 

Research, analysis, documentation, execution. Quietly absorbed by fleets of AI agents. No complaints. No PTO. No learning curve. The Big Four did not ask whether AI could help. They asked where humans were still doing work that machines now do better, faster, and cheaper. 

These are uncomfortable question for innovation leaders. But we’re accustomed to helping teams put down repetitive work and find faster, better ways to get the job done. Where are your smartest people still doing dumb work? 

Second: hiring flipped the pyramid on its head. 

Entry-level hiring slowed. Engineers, data scientists, and AI architects became the hot ticket. They redefined expertise. 

Translation: if your innovation strategy does not show up in your hiring plan, it is probably just a slide deck. I guess the bigger question is what does an entry level hire at the Big 4 do now? And how to they build a bench of great jr’s who know how to do it the Deloitte Way? 

Third: the business model finally cracked. 

When AI does the work, billing by the hour starts to look nostalgic. 

The Big Four moved toward outcome-based, “service-as-software” models. Selling results, not time. It is a quiet revolt against decades of professional services economics. Heck, my attorney still wants to charge me “copying fees” for a PDF. Something had to give, right? 

This is where innovation leaders need to pay attention. 

If AI slashes the cost of execution: 

  • What exactly are you charging for? 
  • Which parts of your value proposition are already becoming commodities? 
  • Which parts are still unmistakably, irreplaceably human? 

The Big Four’s 2025 transformation matters because they were willing to let AI force hard conversations about talent, power, and profit. 

AI does not disrupt organizations. Leaders disrupt organizations when they stop protecting the old rules. 

So here is the real question for innovation leaders. Are you using AI to make your current model more efficient, or to design the one that replaces it? We’re in the business of business model change. And we have to start re- inventing ourselves as innovators. 

Because the furniture is moving. 

The only question is whether you planned the renovation or woke up in a different house.