LO
CapabilityCognitive automation2026-03-11
Consultants using AI completed 12.2% more tasks 25.1% faster, but on a problem outside AI's frontier they were 19% less likely to get it right, a field experiment with 758 found
Management consultantoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2026-03-11
Evidence stage
CapabilityA demo, benchmark or paper shows the task can be done. Updates what the technology can do — not what employers will do.
Tasks this bears on
Finding the question behind the question
Working out that the client asking how to cut costs is really asking how to justify a decision they have already made, or how to move a person without saying so.
Still human-led≈ Platform inference
Where this applies
A preregistered field experiment with 758 knowledge workers at a global consulting firm. For tasks inside AI's frontier, those using AI completed 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% more quickly on average, with significantly improved quality; for a complex managerial task chosen to be outside the frontier, those using AI were 19% less likely to produce correct solutions than those without it. The outside-frontier task was a problem-framing task. It is an experiment with the consulting firm as a collaborator, not a measure of deployment.
What this means
AI makes consultants faster at the work inside its reach, and worse at the work outside it — and the task it made them worse at was working out what the real problem is. That is the part of this job the tool does not do, and leaning on it there costs accuracy.
What it does not yet show
One experiment with one firm's consultants on designed tasks; it measures performance in the experiment, not how framing is done on real engagements.
What you can check
Open the RePEc record for Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier (Organization Science, 2026) and find "were 19% less likely to produce correct solutions compared with those without AI".
Does it change the assessment?
No — and this stage does not move it either. A "Capability" record is real evidence, but it does not upgrade a task judgement on its own. The 1 linked judgement above stand where they were.
Source
Dell'Acqua et al., Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality, Organization Science 37(2):403–423 (2026) — RePEc record of the published abstract · verified 2026-09-29 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-29 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.