IBM leader uses an AI agent to reclaim time
A senior leader at IBM Consulting has built an internal AI agent called “Digital Dave” to cut meeting‑prep time and free up hours for client work, showing how consultancies are reorganizing workflows around automation. The story is a practical example of how firms are rewarding candidates who can redesign routines and improve execution — not just produce slide decks. (businessinsider.com)
One IBM Consulting leader got rid of the 30-minute prep call before client meetings by building an internal artificial intelligence agent named “Digital Dave,” and he told Business Insider it now saves him about five hours a week. (businessinsider.com) The executive is Dave McCann, a senior leader in IBM Consulting, and his agent pulls together briefing material before meetings so he can spend more time with clients instead of chasing background notes. (businessinsider.com) IBM Consulting is a big enough machine for this to matter at scale: IBM says its Consulting Advantage platform equips nearly 150,000 consultants with role-specific artificial intelligence assistants, agents, and apps. (ibm.com) That platform is part of a larger push inside IBM to turn consulting work into what the company calls “people plus software,” where human teams supervise intelligent agents instead of doing every repetitive step by hand. (ibm.com) IBM is also selling this shift as a workflow story, not just a chatbot story. On its consulting site, the company says clients are building end-to-end agentic workflows that connect existing systems and aim at measurable business returns. (ibm.com) The reason meeting prep is an obvious target is that consulting firms burn hours on small tasks that repeat every day: reading calendars, checking account history, scanning market news, and turning all of that into a short brief before a call. McCann’s agent automates that bundle instead of replacing the meeting itself. (businessinsider.com) IBM has been putting real numbers behind the same idea elsewhere. In late 2025, the company said its Consulting Advantage tools, embedded inside Microsoft Copilot, had already saved more than 250,000 hours annually for consultants. (erp.today) Its public case for agents goes further than note-taking. IBM says 76% of executives it surveyed are already developing or scaling proofs of concept for autonomous automation, and 86% expect artificial intelligence agents to make process reinvention more effective by 2027. (ibm.com) That changes what gets rewarded inside firms like IBM Consulting. If a manager can remove a weekly prep ritual, free up team time, and still walk into the client meeting better briefed, that manager is doing something more valuable than producing one more polished slide deck. (businessinsider.com) “Digital Dave” is small compared with a full company rollout, but that is why it is useful as a signal. The first wave of artificial intelligence at work was about drafting text faster; this wave is about redesigning the routine so the work shows up already organized when the human arrives. (businessinsider.com)
