Dive Brief:
- McKinsey is rolling out a proprietary generative AI platform to internal employees, the global consulting firm announced Wednesday. The tool, called Lilli, was named after Lillian Dombrowski, the first professional woman hired by McKinsey in 1945, who started its archives.
- Lilli has two modes: one for searching the knowledge archival base, and another that serves as a chat option for external sources. The platform aggregates more than 40 knowledge sources and more than 100,000 documents, according to the company.
- “With Lilli, we can use technology to access and leverage our entire body of knowledge and assets to drive new levels of productivity,” Jacky Wright, McKinsey senior partner and chief technology and platform officer said in the announcement. “This is the first of many use cases that will help us reshape our firm.”
Dive Insight:
McKinsey identified several early use cases in addition to knowledge management. Executives cited using the tool as a thought-sparring partner ahead of meetings and presentations, according to the blog post.
Employees can prompt Lilli with a question and the tool will scan the knowledge base, locate five to seven relevant pieces of information, summarize key points, include links and identify experts in the field.
Around 7,000 employees currently have access to the tool, and the company plans to expand access to the entirety of the firm by this fall, the company told CIO Dive in an email. The company will upskill employees in prompt engineering and content validation.
McKinsey isn’t the only firm looking to leverage its internal knowledge base to boost generative AI offerings internally and for clients. PwC is piloting an internal generative AI tool, ChatPwC, to serve as a conversational AI assistant for employees. Around 1,000 PwC employees have access currently, but the company plans to expand access more broadly over the summer.
Large enterprises with the breadth and depth to support proprietary generative AI are in the early phases of adoption as secure access lessens concerns around privacy.
McKinsey said it tapped an ecosystem of partners and deployed a team of over 70 experts to help scale Lilli in a cost-effective, secure manner.
