Deloitte executive Jillian Wanner says consultants must adopt an ‘engineering-first mindset’: Employees need to be…

Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner recently said that the consultants must adopt an "engineering-first mindset" to stay competitive. Speaking at Nvidia’s GTC conference, Wanner said “It is no longer acceptable at Deloitte to not take an engineering-first mindset. Employees need to be technologists and engineers first, and consultants second.” The IT consulting firm recently partnered with Nvidia to implement digital AI agents and announced a collaboration with the chipmaker to develop its new reasoning models and software.
Wanner noted a rapid acceleration in the adoption of generative AI among Deloitte’s federal clients over the past year.
“There has been a wholehearted embrace of rethinking tasks that require intensive, manual steps,” she said. Wanner stated that administrative and documentation tasks can be automated using AI-powered agents. She said “we can start to immediately empower agents, or generative AI solutions, or platforms, that can start to automate a lot of these functions.”
Adding further, she noted, “There's a significant amount of low-hanging fruit that could translate into some pretty significant value.”
Deloitte is among several major consulting firms that have invested heavily in AI transformation, both internally and for clients. The firm generates approximately $3.3 billion annually from federal contracts, accounting for nearly 10% of its revenue for the 2024 fiscal year.
To support this transition, Deloitte has introduced AI-powered tools, including "DARTbot," an internal chatbot designed to assist nearly 18,000 Audit & Assurance professionals in the U.S. The firm has also launched specialized large language models, "NavigAite" for document summarization and review, and an internal AI chatbot for its 75,000 staff members across Europe, the UK, and the Middle East.