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27 August 2026 (San Francisco, CA) - Consulting executives are ordering junior staff back to the office more frequently to sharpen their human skills as AI takes over a growing proportion of their technical work.
Executives at some of the largest consulting firms in the U.S. and across Europe say AI had made interpersonal skills increasingly valuable - competencies they argued must be developed in-office. Said the head of consulting at Big Four firm EY:
“This change we’ve seen in the last few years where people have set up their lives to be at home a lot is just not the route to success in the world of AI. We’re facing a position where we’re going to have to reduce flexibility, but in order to help the human skills.
AI will increasingly help with routine consulting work, while human consultants will have to be good at what we’re really good at, which is to be human . We have to be face to face once the agents are remote".
He said that forcing employees who had “set up their lives” around remote work to come to the office more regularly would be a “real leadership challenge”. But:
“To build a career in consulting and develop all of those human skills .you cannot do that through so much remote work. We will maintain our longstanding approach to flexibility. But employees need to be flexible, too”.
The comments reflect a broader shift in thinking across all white-collar industries. After several years of investment in AI tools and defending hybrid working, some employers have concluded that the technology has made "in-person, on-site" collaboration crucial. Examples:
- Microsoft last year told staff they must come to the office three days a week, with chief executive Satya Nadella saying that in-person working is “even more important” in an age of AI.
- JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon has repeatedly argued that younger bankers need to be in the office to learn professional judgment.
Consulting relies on an apprenticeship model in which junior staff observe how senior colleagues handle clients and discuss meetings afterwards.
But firms “dropped” training in human skills - including empathy, storytelling and leadership - during the remote working boom in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, instead prioritizing AI and technical skills.
Now, investing more in this kind of training is crucial. Firms "need to go back to the future".
The debate comes as firms take divergent approaches to office attendance. Deloitte continues to give individual teams discretion over how often they work in person, while EY and PwC operate hybrid working policies.
Rival Big Four firm KPMG is experimenting with new approaches to in-person training to “reinvent” the way it helps staff build their “soft” skills as well as their technical skills. The speed of learning face to face is going to be much quicker than remote working, many have concluded. Many have noted that changes wrought by AI made it more important than ever for those starting out in their careers to have opportunities to learn directly from others.
So several executives have said younger employees must increasingly be expected to spend more time alongside colleagues.
And that's led some similar we saw during the legendary dot.com years: firms are expanding its office activities, including chess, padel and netball clubs, to encourage junior consultants who started their careers during the pandemic to spend more time in person.
In 2023, Deloitte and PwC started giving extra coaching to their youngest recruits after noticing they had weaker teamwork and communication skills than previous cohorts after Covid-19 lockdowns.
And a surprise. Many firms were considering the need to explain the reason for more in-person interaction - but they did not need attendance mandates because younger employees already recognized the benefits of working in the office.
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