Half of professional services staff say AI improves work-life balance

Staff in professional services are at a high risk of burn-out – but with close to three-quarters of firms in the sector adopting AI tools, a new study suggests that could soon change. Polling professionals in the accounting, consulting, legal and finance sectors, the paper argues that close to half feel using the technology has allowed for improvements in their work-life balance.

Known for its challenging and important work, the consulting segment has a hard-earned reputation for being an intense working environment. Firms push their staff to meet project deadlines for clients, alongside large amounts of internal work, and as a result, 77% of staff at the largest consultancies work more than their contract hours. Previous research from Consultancy.uk has shown many face a working week of between 50 and 80 hours – pushing them to the limit in terms of energy, and work-life balance.

Burnout is a frequent problem in the consulting sector, due to this. And as every year, sick staff cost British firms a combined £77 billion in lost productivity, finding a way to help staff improve their well-being and work-life balance is crucial for any firms looking to boost their bottom lines – especially as consulting firms battle with a market that is shrinking for the first time since the pandemic.

New research from software provider Intapp suggests that the use of AI in the professional services sector could be about to change this, though. Speaking to more than 800 professionals, the firm says it found that AI usage among accountants, consultants, financial staff and legal professionals has grown substantially, with 72% using AI at work versus 48% in 2024.

A beneficiary of this increased uptake, Intapp provides software across the professional services sector. One of the products it sells to clients is Intapp Assist – which its website describes as an AI “designed for the way your professionals work”. Saying it aims to bring generative AI to the daily work of the professional services industry, Intapp argues its technology can help professionals to “better apply their intelligence while driving speed and accuracy”.

Time saver

According to Intapp’s study, the kind of technology which it provides is already leading a revolution in the delivery of work across the professional services industry. Respondents said that AI was already meeting their expectations in a number of ways: with 52% saying it had helped reduce manual effort; the same number saying it had boosted scheduling efficiency; and 51% saying it had led to better productivity.

As a result, many professionals felt the technology was helping to improve their working environment. A 48% chunk said time saved by using AI had helped improve their work-life balance – thanks to weekly time-savings which 38% ranged between three and five hours. A further 26% said the technology saved them more than six hours.

The most popular tasks for AI use were data summarisation, at 41%, and document generation, at 40%. However, staff were hopeful of even more time-saving potential in the future – with 51% saying AI could be especially good when used for the time-consuming and repetitive task of data entry. Firms deploying the technology in this way were home to the highest levels of satisfaction – with 90% of staff at tech-forward companies highly likely to remain with their firm. This compared to 63% of firms with just the average adoption of technology.

Deployment

If the technology really is yielding such profound gains in productivity, however, it seems questionable whether it will be deployed in such a benevolent manner for much longer. As the largest consulting firms continue to search for ways to boost flagging growth, and beef up profit-margins for partner payouts, it might seem unlikely that they will continue to look on the time saved by AI as something which can improve work-life balance, or reduce the unofficial 80-hour week their staff are escaping.

Instead, firms may decide they need fewer staff, and reduce headcounts – pushing up the workload for those remaining, and possibly adding even more burden to a firm’s individuals.