Consensus signals from 13 consulting firms — KW 31/2026

1. AI cycle shifts from adoption to value proof and cost control

EY, Accenture, BCG, IDC, KPMG, Forrester (6 firms)

The phase of uncritical AI rollout is over. Companies now measure cost per token, governance effort and value realization — and the numbers are sobering: only 23 % report broad, sustained business value (Accenture), 82 % are concerned about token costs and 98 % have rethought their approach as a result (EY), 16.7 % of AI spend already goes to agent governance (IDC).

2. Power and grid connection are the hard bottleneck of AI buildout

McKinsey, KPMG, Gartner, Forrester, Deloitte (5 firms)

The limiting factor of AI scaling is not compute or capital but physical energy infrastructure. KPMG puts US grid-connection lead times at more than eight years; McKinsey covers the shift to 800 V DC and overbuilding risk; Gartner forecasts data-center systems spending of 822 bn USD (+62.5 %).

3. Geopolitics feeds through to inflation and rates via energy prices

Deloitte, McKinsey, IDC, EY, KPMG (5 firms)

The Middle East conflict has moved from a risk scenario to a priced-in macro factor. Deloitte quantifies: crude briefly near 100 USD/barrel, European gas at a four-year high, the US 10-year yield up from 4.4 % to 4.66 % — with rising rate-hike expectations for the Fed and the ECB.

4. Agentic AI leaves the pilot phase — governance becomes an investment line

Forrester, McKinsey, BCG, EY, IDC (5 firms)

Agents have arrived in production. Forrester delivers the AEGIS framework, IDC quantifies the governance share at 16.7 % of AI spend, BCG puts field-service productivity gains at 20–30 %, EY reports 60–80 % fewer manual planning interventions in the supply chain.

5. Cybersecurity is being redefined by AI

Forrester, EY, KPMG (3 firms)

AI drives attack and defense at the same time. Forrester introduces the AEGIS framework for agentic guardrails and documents OpenAI's hardware-passkey requirement from 01 Sep 2026. EY shows 66 % faster incident triage through agents.

6. Supply-chain regionalization loses priority

KPMG, Deloitte, BCG (3 firms)

Despite persistent geopolitical tensions, reshoring momentum has cooled: only 22 % want to regionalize operations and supply chains. In 2026, capital flows into automation and AI-driven service productivity rather than physical relocation.

Contributions of the 13 firms in KW 31

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Methodology & limitations

RSS-based firms (McKinsey, Forrester, IDC, Capgemini) can be fully automated. Deloitte and EY are well covered via dated single pages. BCG, KPMG, PwC, IBM and Gartner require rendered browsing or manual review. The full PDF report also includes all original URLs as references.