KPMG Staff to Be Rated on AI Usage in Yearly Performance Reviews

KPMG LLP bosses will start examining how staffers are using the firm’s artificial intelligence tools as part of their annual performance reviews, the latest sign of how the technology is rapidly reshaping the world of consulting.

The firm is already tracking how staff are using AI using data from tools such as Microsoft Corp.’s Copilot, according to Niale Cleobury, KPMG’s global AI workforce lead. Now, they’ll be assessed on how well they’ve met the firm’s AI objectives in their 2026 performance reviews.

“We all have a responsibility to be bringing AI to all of our work, and that’s not just the leadership, that is all the way down to our juniors,” Cleobury said in an interview. “Now we are taking that a step further by saying: ‘Actually everyone’s objectives at year-end — what are you going to do to bring in AI to your work?’”

Major professional services firms from Accenture Plc to McKinsey & Co. have invested millions of dollars in AI technology. They’re now pushing more staff to use the tools, which have the potential to cut costs and boost profit margins across an industry that’s been buffeted by a slowdown in demand in recent years.

Read more: Ex-McKinsey Consultants Are Training AI Models to Replace Them

While the firm is investing in more tools that will allow it to better track staffers’ AI engagement, KPMG is not trying to police the way they use the technology.

“Monitoring is not for policing’s sake, we need to make sure that all staff are using these tools because that is the best way to do the jobs,” said Samantha Gloede, KPMG’s global head of risk services, who also leads the firm’s work to ensure its AI is built on trust, ethics and responsibility.

She said KPMG’s goal is to make “sure we can measure the value that we are getting from the investment.”

Meanwhile, professional services giant Accenture said in September that it would begin cutting staffers who could not be retrained as it pivots to more AI-related work.

“We are exiting, on a compressed timeline, people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need,” Accenture’s Chief Executive Officer Julie Sweet told analysts on a conference call last month.

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James Booth in London at jbooth68@bloomberg.net

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Jenny Surane at jsurane4@bloomberg.net

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