IBM Consulting senior VP Mohamad Ali has revealed how the company’s employees are working in tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The company executive has recently demonstrated that the company has moved beyond theorising about AI and is now running a live model in which humans monitor AI agents handling real client work in real time, a shift he describes as the new template for consulting. Ali also noted that the biggest question in corporate strategy is how to prepare for a world in which humans can work alongside AI agents.In an interview with Business Insider, Ali explained that IBM Consulting’s internal platform, “Consulting Advantage,” was unveiled in 2024 to help its consultants build and manage teams of AI agents. “We don’t do, like, what markets you should be in. We do strategy around ‘how do you take your corporate strategy and implement it?'” he said. “Every hour I can see what’s going on with all the humans associated with digital workers,” and vice versa, he said. “That is the new consulting model going forward,” Ali added.In January, the company released a client-facing version called “Enterprise Advantage,” which allows organisations to build and manage AI agents at scale.
IBM Consulting VP explains how the AI agent monitoring tool works
Ali offered an example of how the model works in practice. In a typical security operations centre, a human investigator would normally spend about 45 minutes reviewing logs after an alert to determine what went wrong and what action to take. At IBM, that process is now handled largely by AI. Digital workers first generate an investigation plan, then execute it in real time, with multiple agents working on different parts of the problem simultaneously and passing tasks back and forth. They then run a risk analysis and produce a report, a process that now takes a couple of minutes. The findings are passed to humans, with key actions highlighted, for verification. In January, IBM used this approach to complete 52,000 investigations, Ali noted. The company currently has digital workers operating alongside humans on more than 150 client engagements.IBM’s consulting arm, which acquired PwC’s consulting business in 2002, has operated for decades, employs around 150,000 people, and positions itself as a competitor to both the Big Four accounting firms and technology-focused consultancies like Accenture.The broader IBM business has seen its generative AI division valued at $12.5 billion, as reported during its fourth-quarter earnings call. IBM Consulting’s revenue for 2025 came in at over $21 billion, up from approximately $20.7 billion in 2024, driven in part by rising client demand for generative AI implementation services.
