In the consulting industry’s era of AI upheaval, even job titles aren’t safe from change.
Deloitte is preparing to overhaul job titles for its U.S. workforce as part of a sweeping “modernization” effort, as originally reported by Business Insider. According to an internal presentation seen by BI, the firm is shifting away from a workforce structure that was originally designed for “traditional consulting profiles,” a model the firm now deems outdated.
Deloitte confirmed the coming change in a statement to Fortune, saying. “We are modernizing our talent architecture to provide a more tailored experience reflective of our professionals’ broad range of skills and the work they do serving our clients.”
Mo Reynolds, Deloitte U.S.’s chief people officer, hosted the meeting where these changes were announced. While the presentation focused on the consulting division, the changes will be firm-wide and impact all of the firm’s U.S. divisions, which comprises about 181,500 employees, according to Deloitte’s 2025 U.S. Facts and Figures page.
Under this new system, consultants can expect to see a divergence from the familiar progression of analyst, consultant, and manager, according to the presentation. Those roles will be replaced by more specific titles that include a reference to a “job family” and “sub-family.” Following the change, a “senior consultant” could expect their title change to become “Software Engineer III,” “Project Management Senior Consultant,” or “Senior Consultant, Functional Transformation.”
A new leadership class simply titled “Leaders” will join the senior ranks of partners, principals, and managing directors. And internally, employees will also be assigned alphanumeric levels, such as L45 for what is currently a senior consultant and L55 for managers. However, the presentation stressed that the day-to-day work, leadership, and the firm’s “compensation philosophy” will all remain the same.
The changing landscape of consulting work
The move—which is set to take effect on June 1, 2026—mirrors changes proposed as part of the debate on the future of consultancy in the age of AI. For decades, consulting firms have relied upon a pyramid model for workers, with a fleet of junior consultants in entry-level positions—clocking in to handle time-consuming tasks like research, modeling, and data analysis—overseen by a hierarchy of senior consultants and managing directors. AI is reshaping how some junior consultants approach their tasks, which could cause that pyramid model to crumble.
Last September, Deloitte committed $3 billion in generative AI development through fiscal year 2030. The company has also launched Zora AI, an agentic AI model powered by Nvidia to “to automate complex business processes, eliminate data siloes and boost productivity for the human workforce.”
The move toward an agentic workforce is also underway at other Big Four firms. McKinsey & Company CEO Bob Sternfels recently shared on Harvard Business Review’s Ideacast that his firm’s fleet of AI agents grew by over 500% in just 18 months, reaching approximately 20,000 agents. Sternfels predicts that soon every employee will be enabled by one or more agents, creating a workforce that is simultaneously “human and agentic”. Boston Consulting Group is using Deckster to produce presentation decks in minutes. And in 2023, Bain announced a global alliance with OpenAI.
Other firms have made big commitments to AI. EY has committed $1.4 billion to AI-based strategy over five years, KPMG has committed $2 billion on AI, and Accenture has bet $3 billion to build out its data and AI practice.
The consulting industry is facing an existential moment as AI forces firms to reassess their professional identities. As for Deloitte, the proposed changes are designed to ‘drive greater market relevancy and clarity’ in an increasingly automated landscape, according to the internal presentation.
[This report has been updated with a statement from Deloitte.]
