McKinsey doesn't publish its rates, but typical strategy engagements run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indian startup Rocket is positioning itself against that price point with an AI platform built to produce the same type of work.
Rocket combines three functions in one platform: strategy analysis, product planning, and competitive intelligence. The company's approach borrows from the "vibe coding" trend - where you describe what you want in plain language and AI writes the software for you - and applies that same idea to consulting work. The pitch: describe your strategic question, get a structured analysis back.
The obvious target customer is a founder, small business owner, or operator who needs more than a Google search but can't justify outside consultants. Competitive analysis, market sizing, go-to-market frameworks - these tasks eat weeks of time or serious money at traditional firms. If an AI can produce 70% of that value for a fraction of a consulting fee, that's a real option for teams that otherwise wouldn't have it.
The more interesting question is what consulting is actually selling. A lot of the value in a McKinsey engagement is the credibility stamp - something that carries weight with boards and investors regardless of what's in the report. An AI-generated strategy analysis won't carry that institutional authority, at least not yet. For most small operators, that distinction probably doesn't matter. For anyone trying to justify a major decision to outside stakeholders, it might.
Rocket is newly launched with limited public pricing information. But the direction it represents is clear: AI is pushing past code generation into the knowledge work that has traditionally required expensive professionals to deliver.