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Bain & Company says that it has rolled out 12 generative AI tools internally since OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene about a year ago.

Some of those tools are off-the-shelf, while others were developed in-house by the consultancy’s engineers.

The news is notable because many of Bain’s corporate clients are no doubt asking it for help implementing generative AI products. That means the firm needs to demonstrate it has expertise in using the technology, and there’s no better way of achieving this than to successfully apply generative AI to its own business operations.

One of Bain’s custom-built AI technologies is an application called Sage that helps staffers search internal databases more quickly. The consultancy has also built a tool called Expert Call Guide Draft Generator that gives employees pointers on how to communicate with business contacts from outside the firm.

Bain didn’t share too much information on how its AI tools work or their technical architecture. But the firm did reveal that Sage is powered by OpenAI’s newest GPT-4 language model.  

Together with its custom-developed tools, Bain is using off-the-shelf AI products. One of those products is Microsoft Copilot, a chatbot embedded into Office applications that can write text and summarize documents.

“The world continues to find powerful uses for AI that fuel innovation, productivity and business growth,” commented Bain boss Manny Maceda. “It’s vital for companies to identify not just how AI will impact them, but to also master how they can benefit from this technology that will be critical to long-term competitive advantage.”

Bain’s generative AI unit appears to be seeing steady client demand. The firm doesn’t break out revenue data, but its website highlights several generative AI consulting projects that it has carried out for top brands like Coca-Coca.

Bain’s value proposition is that it can provide a soup-to-nuts consulting package spanning from AI implementation services to employees training. The firm relies on external partners, including software providers and IT consultancies, to fill in the puzzle pieces that it can’t provide in-house.

Bain is facing a lot of competition in the generative AI space from both smaller and larger consultancies. That means it can be expected to step up its marketing in this area going forward to try and stand out from the pack, which will presumably involve the announcement of more internally-developed AI tools. 

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