AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are actively shifting their strategies from "free-for-all" internet data scraping toward structured, negotiated partnerships to secure high-quality data for training, often utilizing consulting firms to facilitate these deals. This shift comes as creators, publishers, and platforms (such as Reddit) aggressively fight against the unauthorized, free use of their information.
Key Developments in the Data War
Shifting from Scraping to Partnerships: Amidst lawsuits and legal threats, AI firms are increasingly partnering with major consulting companies (e.g., in biotech and other sectors) to secure legal access to proprietary datasets. OpenAI has deepened partnerships with consulting giants to facilitate these deals.
The "Opt-In" Movement: Data holders are now pushing for licensing agreements, and organizations like the Dataset Providers Alliance (including Rightsify, Pixta) are trying to standardize ethical AI data licensing.
Anthropic's Changed Approach: After facing a $1.5 billion settlement over alleged piracy of books, Anthropic now requires users on many plans to decide whether their conversations are used for training, with a 5-year retention policy, marking a shift from their previous privacy-focused stance.
Active Legal Challenges: Reddit sued Anthropic, accusing them of "illegal scraping" of over 100,000 posts to train their Claude chatbot.
Strategies to "Convince" Companies to Share
AI companies, with the help of consultants, are using several methods to encourage companies to share their data:
Data-for-Value Exchange: Enterprises are offered discounts on AI services or promises of improved, customized service in exchange for allowing their data to be used in training.
Data Licensing Agreements: Similar to the deal OpenAI signed with the Associated Press, AI firms are paying for access to high-quality data.
Data Consortia: Some industries are forming groups to pool data for mutual AI training, as seen with CodaMetrix in the medical billing space.
The Role of Consultants
AI consulting firms (e.g., Cognizant, RWS/TrainAI) are now providing specialized services to help enterprises structure their data for AI training. These firms help bridge the gap between AI developers needing data and companies wanting to protect their intellectual property while benefiting from AI, by ensuring compliance and structuring licensing deals.
“Artificial intelligence initially threatened to replace consultants. Now, it is giving them a boost -- at least for a little while.
AI's biggest competitors are leaning on the McKinseys of the world to solve a problem for them: Businesses aren't using AI to the fullest extent. Yet, getting AI deeper into business operations is where the big money is.
Among nearly 2,000 employees surveyed by McKinsey last summer, about two-thirds said their organizations hadn't started scaling AI across the enterprise. More than half of nearly 4,500 chief executives polled by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year said they had seen no significant financial benefit from AI.
OpenAI and Anthropic have been striking deals with consultants to help promote the use of their technology. In deals reached with McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture and Capgemini, OpenAI engineering teams will work alongside those firms' consultants. Anthropic, meanwhile, announced a deal with Deloitte last year to develop industry solutions; it works with other firms, too.
"All the firms are tying themselves up with one or the other, trying to figure out who's best to be with," says Bill Achtmeyer, chairman at Acropolis Advisors, who sold his strategy consulting firm Parthenon to EY in 2014.
OpenAI's Frontier platform helps companies build, deploy and manage AI agents. The company's team of 70 so-called forward-deployed engineers work with companies on how to use the platform for specific needs. Now, the consulting companies will help businesses shape strategy, integrate the AI systems and redesign their workflows around the technology.
For example, Colin Jarvis, OpenAI's global head of forward-deployed engineering, points to a large European bank where OpenAI is working with one of the consulting firms. The team considered eight use cases for Frontier, including functions related to credit risk and voice capabilities.
(News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.)
The partnerships with consultants aim to bridge the gap between what AI can potentially do and what it is used for today.
But the firms work with many AI companies and systems, not just with OpenAI. Accenture recently struck an agreement with Mistral AI. Anthropic, which has its own ranks of forward-deployed engineers, recently announced new customizable agents for workflows in investment banking and equity research, among other areas.
AI stands apart from previous tech advances because its applications are so broad and many potential uses have yet to be discovered, says Tom Rodenhauser, managing partner of K2 Consulting Research, which tracks the industry.
AI work has increased demand for consultancies, he says. His firm's research found global consulting grew 5.5% in 2025, double the rate of the prior year. Accenture, for instance, disclosed $2.2 billion in new AI bookings in the most recent quarter, a $400 million increase from bookings in the prior quarter.
Forging partnerships with AI companies isn't consulting as usual. Clients are less interested in paying for a large number of junior associates to collect and synthesize data. Now, more agreements are tied to outcome-based pricing -- where a firm is paid partly based on whether a project gets a specified result -- rather than how many people they throw at it.
"The way we've known consulting over the last 50 years changes pretty dramatically," says Rodenhauser, who adds that the near-term gains might be short-lived.
At McKinsey, the classic team model has changed to include more engineers, says Ben Ellencweig, a leader at McKinsey's AI unit, QuantumBlack. Artificial intelligence, he says, "allows us to focus our time on the things that make us as consultants more distinctive."
BCG views the Frontier partnership as a way to transform how companies actually run. "We hope this accelerates a shift that was already under way at BCG, helping clients move from isolated AI pilots to full-scale reinvention of workflows," says Dylan Bolden, a senior partner at BCG.
It is possible the consulting industry shrinks, says Achtmeyer, the chairman at Acropolis Advisors. AI's ability to do data-crunching and analysis has raised plenty of existential questions for an industry built on human expertise.
Still, he says, company bosses will always want input from senior partners on some of the most pressing decisions they face.
Or, as Mo Koyfman, founder at the venture-capital firm Shine Capital, puts it: Companies need a human to hold responsible should anything go wrong.
"They want a throat to choke," Koyfman says. "They want to be able to pick up a phone and call a human being and say, 'You screwed me.' "” [1]
1. Anthropic, OpenAI Team With Consultants. Pohle, Allison. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 10 Mar 2026: B1.
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