West Monroe Earns Top Stevie® Honor for AI-Driven Culture of Innovation in 2026; Bret Greenstein Named an AI Leader of the Year

Firm also launches internal AI Store to accelerate how employees build, share, and scale AI solutions as its AI-native operating model is recognized by American Business Awards

CHICAGO, May 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- West Monroe, a global business and technology consulting firm, today announced it earned the top honor in the AI-Driven Culture of Innovation category in the 2026 American Business Awards, taking home the category's only Gold Stevie® Award. West Monroe's Chief AI Officer, Bret Greenstein, was also recognized as an AI Leader of the Year by the Stevie® Awards. The recognitions come in the same week West Monroe launched its internal AI Store, a new platform that brings together employee-built AI solutions into one place, making it easier to discover, share, and adopt solutions being built across the firm.  

The recognitions, along with the newly launched AI Store, underscore West Monroe's distinctive approach to becoming an AI-native consulting firm: democratizing the creation of assets and solutions with AI so its workforce can shape how the firm operates, advises, delivers, and builds. While many organizations are still working to scale AI beyond isolated teams or pilots, West Monroe has paired central leadership and governance with broad access to governed tools, training, and builder capabilities, empowering employees across all roles and levels to create new ways of working and deliver innovative client solutions. The result is a model that accelerates adoption, scales innovation, and brings that expertise and experience directly into client work.

West Monroe earned the category's highest honor in a competitive field that included some of the world's largest companies.  

"Because we're advising clients how to transform with AI, we have to hold ourselves to a very high standard," said Tanya Moore, Chief People Officer at West Monroe. "That starts with building a culture where AI is embedded in reimagined workflows, governed, and actively leveraged across the firm. Bret's leadership has been instrumental in accelerating how we build the capabilities, confidence, and culture to help our people turn their ideas into real solutions."

West Monroe's winning nomination highlighted the strength of the firm's enterprise-wide AI operating model and the leadership driving it. Since Greenstein joined as West Monroe's Chief AI Officer in September 2025, the firm has rapidly accelerated its AI-native strategy across the business, driving measurable gains in adoption, productivity, and innovation. Judges noted the firm's mature, organization-wide AI operating model, citing strong adoption, governance, leadership alignment, and direct linkage to commercial outcomes.

Key milestones from West Monroe's AI adoption in the last year include:

• Firmwide AI adoption doubled, creating the equivalent of an additional 20% capacity, while AI-related time savings also doubled year over year
• Nigel, West Monroe's secure internal AI platform, reached 94% adoption with 1.9 million messages exchanged
• The firm developed an internal AI Store with over 465 solutions, including skills, agents, applications, tools, and assets
• Live AI demos are included in 25% of client conversations, transitioning from presentations to working solutions
• The firm rolled out OpenAI's Enterprise ChatGPT platform, Google AI Studio, and Claude Code & Codex across its workforce, expanding secure access to generative AI for client delivery, research, analysis, and solution development
• The firm launched in-person AI learning labs, with more than half of the firm's workforce expected to go through the program by year end
• Redesigned workflows and delivery models to accelerate speed to value, with 96% of clients saying the value delivered was equal to or greater than their investment
• 74% of employees earned at least one AI badge and 3,666 AI badges have been awarded through the firm's award-winning role-based credentialing program Degreed

To accelerate the next phase of its AI-native transformation, West Monroe also launched today its AI Store, a single destination for employees to access GPTs, common prompts, apps, and other AI assets built across the firm into one shared experience. The AI Store advances the work of the firm's Builder Community, a one-of-its-kind grassroots network where builders can get extra guidance and resources and connect what they're working on into the firm's R&D pipeline. The community brings together more than 250 employees across roles and experience levels to turn ideas into solutions at scale, quickly. The community is open to all employees.

"Building has always been part of what makes West Monroe different," Greenstein added. "What we're seeing now is a real sense of energy across the firm. People are eager to experiment, build, and turn ideas into practical solutions. The Builder Community gives that entrepreneurial energy a stronger foundation. That matters because the same capabilities we are building internally are the ones we use to help clients move from AI ambition to real operational change, faster than anyone in the market."

These latest recognitions build on West Monroe's continued industry momentum. Earlier this year, the firm was named to Forbes' list of America's Best Management Consulting Firms 2026—one of only a select group of firms recognized specifically for its AI capabilities.

Learn more about West Monroe's AI capabilities at https://www.westmonroe.com/about/unlock-full-potential-of-ai.

About West Monroe

West Monroe is a global business and technology consulting firm passionate about creating value for our clients. We co-create solutions that accelerate results now and prepare industries to tackle what's next. We're excited by the possibilities that technology creates. We work with our clients to deliver on the possible, building on their goals, generating fresh insights and creating inspiring outcomes.

We excel at the intersection of industry, strategy, people and technology—always driving rapid impact. Our all-in approach comes from our unique employee ownership structure. Our clients' success is our success. From the beginning, our growth has come from putting people at the center. Fortune and USA Today consistently celebrate West Monroe as a top workplace, and we're recognized as a leading consultancy by Forbes and Business Insider. Let's find more value for your business.

Share our passion at westmonroe.com

About the Stevie Awards

The Stevie American Business Awards are the U.S.A.'s premier business awards program. More than 3,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration. More than 230 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year's Stevie Award winners.

Winners will be celebrated during an awards banquet on Tuesday, June 9 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Details about The American Business Awards and the list of 2026 Stevie winners are available at https://ABA.StevieAwards.com.

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SOURCE West Monroe