West Monroe Marks Third Annual Innovation Week by Showcasing Employee-Built AI Solutions and Investing in Future Innovators
Firm offers a public window into its internal AI Marketplace of 600+ employee-built solutions and announces AI education partnership with the Mark Cuban Foundation.
CHICAGO, Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- West Monroe, an AI-native global consulting firm, is marking its third annual Innovation Week by showcasing how employee-led innovation is transforming the way the firm works, creating measurable value for clients, and inspiring the next generation of AI builders.
Taking place October 19–23, the week brings employees and leaders together to share innovations, collaborate on new ideas, and explore opportunities to turn promising solutions into lasting business value. The weeklong event reflects the firm's broader approach to innovation: giving all employees the tools, resources, and opportunities to build solutions that can be scaled within the organization and for clients.
Giving the Public a Window into Employee-Led AI Innovation
For the first time, West Monroe is giving the public a look inside its internal AI Marketplace, a centralized collection of employee-created AI applications, super prompts, skills, demos, and other solutions.
West Monroe encourages everyone, regardless of technical background, to build with AI. The firm makes most of its AI tools, including Codex and Google AI Studio, available to all employees across the firm, empowering them to create their own solutions. Employees can then submit their innovations to the AI Marketplace, where approved solutions become available for others to discover, use, and build upon—saving time, sparking inspiration, and eliminating duplicative rework.
Examples of select applications featured in the public-facing experience include:
- Prompt Clarity Coach: Guides users through a three-step process to turn new ideas into clearer, more effective AI prompts, helping them get better results from AI tools.
- Professional Development Planner: Helps people identify career goals, explore opportunities to develop new skills, and create personalized, actionable plans for professional growth.
- Restaurant Menu Insights Demo: Based on a demo developed for a client, this application analyzes restaurant menus to identify ingredient opportunities and product substitutions, connecting menu items to opportunities for growth, greater operational efficiency, consistency, and improved margins.
Additionally, the firm has mobilized a community of advanced AI builders, now representing 15% of West Monroe's workforce. The Builder Community develops delivery assets and reimagines how the firm serves clients through AI.
"The people closest to the work often have the best ideas about how to make it better, and AI is making it possible for everyone, technical or not, to bring those ideas to life as tools and apps," said Bret Greenstein, Chief AI Officer at West Monroe. "We've given our people the freedom to solve problems themselves, and they've built more than 600 solutions and counting to improve how we work and deliver value to clients. This is what being AI-native actually looks like: people at every level using AI to rethink how work gets done, sharing what they've created, and making the entire organization better."
The public-facing experience builds on the June launch of westmonroe.ai, the firm's public platform offering business leaders access to AI agents that help tackle strategic challenges, from assessing business model risks to evaluating AI readiness and talent strategies.
The firm's internal AI Marketplace has already been featured in Business Insider and CIO.com.
Turning Employee Innovation into Business Value
Innovation Week also provides an opportunity for West Monroe employees to collaborate and turn ideas into practical solutions through the firm's innovation competitions.
This year's Innovation Week competition challenges teams to develop more effective ways of advancing the firm's growing portfolio of technology assets, including how enhancements are prioritized, ownership is established, user experiences are improved, and feedback is incorporated. Participating teams will demonstrate approaches to help West Monroe scale promising solutions and continuously improve the value they deliver.
The competition has a track record of producing commercially successful solutions. During West Monroe's 2024 Innovation Week, a team developed a prototype that became Intellio® Hopper, an AI-powered data modernization solution that reduces the time required to convert data for platforms like Databricks by 80%. Since its inception, the solution has generated about $50 million in sales.
"Some of our most valuable solutions started with employees seeing a problem and deciding there had to be a better way to solve it," said John Rosato, Head of Technology at West Monroe, who is serving as a sponsor and judge for the Innovation Week competition. "Assets are a big part of how West Monroe is different and delivers faster, better results for clients. They allow us to take our expertise and turn it into something repeatable and scalable, which is why this innovation challenge is about investing in their acceleration."
Finalists will present live demonstrations at the conclusion of Innovation Week, with winners receiving cash prizes.
Investing in the Next Generation of AI Builders
West Monroe is also extending its commitment to making AI innovation widely accessible through a partnership with the Mark Cuban Foundation.
The firm will host AI bootcamps for high school students this fall, which will introduce students to AI tools, ethics, and real-world applications through hands-on activities and a final capstone project. The Mark Cuban Foundation provides the curriculum and technology resources, while West Monroe hosts the program and provides employee volunteers as mentors.
"As AI continues to become an undeniable force in all of our lives, it's crucial that we open the door to this knowledge, especially to young people who want to explore it," said Mark Cuban, Founder of the Mark Cuban Foundation. "While technology expands and becomes more advanced, it becomes more critical that we ensure our students are prepared when they apply for schools or jobs in the future. Thanks to our work with West Monroe, the bootcamp will offer an avenue to explore this fascinating field of technology to any student, no matter their means."
The partnership supports West Monroe's mission to build the next generation of leaders and reflects the firm's belief that the ability to understand, use, and build with AI should extend beyond traditional technical roles and backgrounds.
West Monroe's commitment to AI innovation has earned significant industry recognition in 2026. The firm was named Overall AI Consulting Firm of the Year by the AI Breakthrough Awards, received a Gold Stevie® Award for AI-Driven Culture of Innovation at the Stevies American Business Awards, and was recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms, including for its AI consulting capabilities. Chief AI Officer Bret Greenstein was also named an AI Leader of the Year in the Stevie Awards.
For more information and to explore West Monroe's public AI Marketplace preview, visit westmonroe.ai/ai-marketplace.
About West Monroe
West Monroe is an AI-native global consulting firm built for today's pace of change. We combine deep industry expertise with modern technology and business transformation capabilities to help organizations move faster and deliver measurable impact with speed to value and certainty of results through execution excellence. We don't just talk about what's possible—we apply AI and technology where it matters most, pairing strategic insights with hands-on execution to help clients move from strategy to results, faster.
Clients tell us we show up differently. Our employee ownership model fuels an all-in approach grounded in practical execution, measurable impact, and lasting partnership. That commitment has earned recognition from Forbes and Business Insider and made West Monroe one of only 22 companies recognized worldwide for building high-quality careers.
See what's possible at westmonroe.com.
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SOURCE West Monroe
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