Using AI to Reinvent KPMG Consulting

Role
UX Designer

Client
KPMG

Duration
2024 — 10 months

Brief

I was part of a year long internal initiative with the KPMG Futures team to reimagine how KPMG offers consulting services by improving collaboration, integrating AI, and streamlining processes for both employees and clients. The KPMG Futures team focuses on anticipating industry shifts, emerging technologies, and strategic innovation to position KPMG as a market leader.

The project aimed to modernise workflows, enhance decision making, and create a scalable, future-proof system. This initiative focused on creating dedicated tools for each service line, with the long term vision of consolidating common functionalities into one centralised consulting platform in a future phase. I designed for Horizon 3, ensuring the approach was highly innovative.

This engagement was so well received that it was loved by the Partner in Charge of our entire consulting division, as well as the CEO of KPMG. The project is still ongoing and is currently in its build phase.

The Problem

KPMG’s consulting divisions operated with siloed workflows and inconsistent digital touchpoints, leading to inefficiencies in collaboration and client engagement. There was an opportunity to explore how AI could improve service offerings and how processes could be optimised to provide a better experience for both employees and clients.

The Solution

To address these challenges, we designed individual tools for each service line, ensuring specialised functionality while planning for a future consolidation into a single consulting platform. AI driven insights were incorporated to automate workflows, enhance decision making, and improve collaboration through streamlined document-sharing and communication tools. This future-proof approach positioned KPMG as a leader in consulting modernisation, enabling greater efficiency, scalability, and innovation.

This positioned KPMG as a leader in consulting modernisation,
setting a foundation for scalable, efficient,
and future-proof service delivery.

The Process

I was involved in an iterative design process structured around 3 week sprints, each focusing on two service lines at a time for a total of 11 service lines. I was the sole UX designer throughout all of these sprints.

Week 1 — Discovery
Engaged in stakeholder workshops to identify key pain points, mapped existing workflows and inefficiencies across service lines, as well as conducted desktop research to explore opportunities for AI integration and automation within the specific service line.
Week 2 — Design and Iteration
Designed wireframe prototypes in Figma based on research, presented concepts back to the internal team (consisting of directors, engineers, the client for weekly feedback and iteration, and ensured designs were both feasible and viable, aligning with tech and business goals.
Week 3 — Wrap up Deliverables and UI Design Handoff
Created detailed journey maps to define the ideal end-to-end experience, handed off designs to a UI designer, but due to team changes (first a resignation, then redundancies), I also took over UI responsibilities to complete the high-fidelity designs and mentored a junior who was supporting me.

The Expansion! Leading and Designing a Separate Tech Advisory Tool

During this period, the Tech Advisory service line was so impressed with our wireframes that the partners decided to skip straight to full prototyping. They secured additional funding by the global partner to develop a separate, dedicated tool, which I was responsible for leading. This ran alongside the main consulting project and was personally a pivotal and proud moment for me in demonstrating the value of our design work at a strategic level.

The Impact

Modernised KPMG's consulting approach: Created a scalable digital framework for the future.
Was recognised at the highest levels: Presented to and endorsed by the Partner in Charge of Consulting and the CEO of KPMG.
Helped KPMG's AI campaign: the firm launched a massive AI campaign to showcase its capabilities and commitment to digital transformation. This project aligned with that strategy, reinforcing KPMG’s position as a leader in AI driven consulting solutions. You can find out more about the campaign here.