What seals the deal when it comes to whether or not the discovery phase of a consulting project is automated? For 53% of senior executives, it’s not about the need for clean data, more data, or even speed; instead, it’s all about the quality of the analysis on offer. The fact that automated processes have developed to the point that they now add meaningful insight on top of heavy lifting (and are seen by clients to have done so) is unequivocally big news, but it’s not quite time to welcome our robot overlords just yet: 86% of respondents to our survey on the topic also said that the discovery phase will always need a significant degree of human participation. Consulting firms need to think hard about how to square this circle and offer solutions that combine the best of their people and their algorithms.