When Big Consulting Becomes a Tech Company: AECOM's $390M Bet on AI Engineering

The old rules of the construction industry just shifted beneath our feet. Last month, global infrastructure engineering giant AECOM made a move that would have been unthinkable five years ago: it bought an AI startup outright, rather than licensing technology from a software vendor.

The acquisition of Norwegian AI firm Consigli for approximately $390 million (4 billion NOK) marks something more significant than just another corporate deal. It signals a fundamental realignment in how traditional professional services firms view their own survival in an AI-driven economy. For those in project delivery, this matters far more than the headline suggests.

The Shift Nobody Expected (But Everyone Feared)

Here's what makes this remarkable: in the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) software landscape, startups get acquired by software vendors. That's the expected order of things. A company like Autodesk buys a promising AI firm, integrates the technology, and sells it back to the market. The customer watches from the sidelines.

But AECOM didn't follow that playbook. Instead of purchasing software, AECOM purchased the capability itself. They acquired the team, the intellectual property, and, most importantly, Janne Aas-Jakobsen, Consigli's founder and CEO, who now serves as AECOM's head of AI engineering. This isn't a software implementation. This is strategic repositioning. And it reveals a crucial insight into how traditional consulting firms now view their future.

The CEO of AECOM said, "18 months ago, we questioned whether AI was an existential risk for our industry. We were genuinely concerned that ... one of our peers or a new entrant ... [or] existing software providers... could [use] AI [to] find a way to effectively put us out of business. We found an organisation that had built math models, and they were going to profoundly change the industry".

What Consigli Actually Does

To understand why AECOM made this move, you need to know what they've just brought in-house. Consigli brands itself as "The Autonomous Engineer", an AI agent that handles the early-stage engineering work that typically consumes enormous amounts of time.

The platform automates:

• Space planning and analysis

• Unit optimisation

• Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) loadings

• Level 3 BIM modelling

• Report generation

• Plant room optimisation

• Tender document preparation and de-risking

• Operations and maintenance documentation

The company claims its technology can reduce engineering time by up to 90% on these core tasks. That's not incremental improvement. That's transformational.

For project delivery professionals accustomed to watching consultants debate whether AI will matter, a 90% reduction in engineering time isn't a theoretical discussion point. It's a competitive threat. And that's precisely why AECOM moved when it did.

The Economics Behind the Capability

The 90% figure isn't just a marketing claim. When you remove the preliminary design work that typically occupies junior and mid-level engineers for months, you're fundamentally restructuring how projects move through early phases. What used to be a six-month preliminary design phase becomes something closer to two weeks.

Consider what that means for project teams. A typical 500-person engineering firm might have 40 people dedicated to early-stage design work. If 90% of that work can be automated, you'll need only four people to perform what previously required 40. That's not a 10% efficiency gain. That's a 90% reduction in labour for specific tasks.

AECOM understood this. They weren't buying a nice-to-have software tool. They were buying capacity to restructure how they deliver projects fundamentally.

The Real Fear Behind the Deal

The most telling detail comes from AECOM's own internal discussions. According to their leadership, the firm was genuinely concerned that competitors or new entrants might use AI to "effectively put us out of business." They saw the disruption coming and realised they couldn't simply outsource their way to safety.

This wasn't paranoia. AECOM had already been working with Consigli on projects and discovered firsthand what the technology could do. They found that using AI with their teams allowed them to deliver work "at an incredibly fast pace. What might take months, AI can do almost instantaneously."

The implications were impossible to ignore. This capability would "profoundly change the ways that our team will work." Translation: it reduces headcount requirements while increasing delivery speed and potentially improving margins.

Why Traditional Consulting Economics Are Threatened

The traditional consulting model operates on a simple principle: more hours equals more revenue. Bring together experienced engineers, multiply their rates by hours billed, and you have your profit. It's predictable. It's repeatable. It's also fundamentally challenged by technology that compresses months of work into days.

When AI can automate 90% of early-stage engineering, the labour economics of traditional consulting invert. The firm doesn't need 12 junior engineers doing preliminary design work. It requires one engineer managing an AI system. The headcount economics don't work the same way. Neither do the margins.

Most striking is what AECOM announced just weeks after the Consigli acquisition. The firm is now reviewing strategic alternatives for its construction management business, potentially selling it off entirely to focus capital and attention on its advisory business and proprietary AI platforms. This clearly reveals the strategic calculation: traditional construction services generate lower returns than AI-augmented advisory work. AECOM is openly choosing to divest legacy business lines to focus on a higher-margin AI-focused future. That's not a software purchase. That's a complete realignment of the business model.

The Broader Implication

What concerns other AEC firms now is whether they're being pushed toward becoming technology companies themselves or risk sliding into commodity territory. Software vendors weighing potential startup targets now face added pressure. Other construction and engineering firms may feel compelled to behave like tech companies or risk irrelevance.

AEC Magazine captured this precisely: "The acquisition marks a notable shift in the AEC software landscape, where startups are typically snapped up by established software vendors rather than their customers."

This inversion of the normal acquisition pattern is what terrifies the industry. When customers begin to acquire vendors' targets, the entire software distribution model comes under pressure. Software vendors can no longer assume they're the default acquirer of promising AI firms. Clients are now competing for the same assets.

What This Means for Project Delivery

For professionals delivering projects today, the AECOM-Consigli deal raises uncomfortable questions:

If your consultancy has outsourced its AI capabilities, how easily can competitors replicate your approach?

If your firm is relying on the same commercial tools as everyone else, how do you differentiate?

Are you building the internal expertise needed to manage AI-augmented project delivery, or are you betting that external vendors will handle the transformation?

This isn't fundamentally a technology story. It's a strategic story. AECOM didn't acquire Consigli because the AI was flashy. They acquired it because they recognised that owning the engineering capability (not just accessing it) was essential to competing in the next decade.

Project margins in construction are perpetually under pressure. Clients increasingly demand transparency, speed, and data-driven decision-making. An internally owned AI engineering capability answers all three problems simultaneously.

The Uncertain Path Forward

There's one detail worth noting: it's unclear whether Consigli will remain a commercial entity or become purely internal to AECOM. That ambiguity is telling. The deal wasn't about launching a new product line. It was about securing capability.

If Consigli goes fully internal, AECOM keeps all the upside. The 90% efficiency gains stay within the firm. Competitors can't access the same technology. But AECOM forgoes revenue from selling Consigli's services to other firms.

If Consigli remains a commercial offering, AECOM can monetise the technology beyond its own projects. But competitors get access to the same tools. The competitive advantage becomes temporary rather than structural.

AECOM hasn't decided. But the choice they make will reveal whether this was purely defensive (securing capability before competitors did) or genuinely transformational (building a new revenue stream).

Looking Ahead

The ripple effects are already visible. Software vendors are reassessing their startup targets. Engineering firms are reconsidering whether outsourcing their digital transformation is wise. And clients are asking their consulting partners uncomfortable questions about where their AI capabilities actually live.

For project delivery professionals watching this unfold, the lesson is clear: the firms that win in the AI era won't be those that adopt new tools. They'll be the ones who understand and own the capabilities those tools unlock.AECOM has made their choice. The question now is what choice your organisation will make.

The age of consulting firms content to be software vendors' customers is ending. What comes next belongs to those who move fastest to become something more. AECOM has made their choice. Subscribe to Project Flux to understand what choice your organisation needs to make before it's made for you.