AI Is Not Destroying Consulting. It’s Raising the Bar.

Consulting is not dead. Stop the nonsense.

Everywhere I look, the same headline: “AI is destroying consulting.”

Even serious media outlets are jumping on the bandwagon, recycling the same tired narrative. Apparently, consulting is just analysis, data crunching, and slick PowerPoint slides, soon to be replaced by AI.

If that were true, the industry would have collapsed long before ChatGPT. Back in 2017 – years before generative AI went mainstream – a report by McKinsey Global Institute found that approximately 45% of activities performed by consultants could be automated using existing technology.

Yet, every year, new reports would show relentless growth of the consulting industry.

• “Strong growth by Europe’s largest consulting markets has lifted the continent’s consulting industry to a record high of $45 billion last year” (Consultancy.eu)
• “The dramatic growth of the industry between 2020 and 2023 has proven that companies need external consultants with strategic knowledge about business administration, business development, as well as expertise about the industry in which clients operate.” (Statista)

Yes, certain consulting business models have been on a downward trajectory for a decade now and AI tools have only accelerated the inevitable. However, not only do I strongly disagree with the claim that AI is destroying consulting, in my experience, AI is redefining the value that consulting firms could potentially deliver to clients for the better.

What the AI Hype Gets Wrong

Let’s be clear. That version of consulting – the bloated, slide-heavy, junior-stacked model – is getting under pressure. Good. It should. But that’s not what real consulting is.

Real consulting work is:

• Sitting in front of a Fortune 500 CEO and helping them align a divided exec team during a critical transformation. It’s navigating internal politics, resolving strategic deadlock, building momentum, and owning the messy, uncomfortable work that follows.
  
  
• Helping companies defend against cyber threats that evolve by the hour. It’s guiding supply chain redesigns across disrupted global networks. It’s steering post-merger integrations where technology, often multi-year ERP programmes, can’t afford to fail. These are not slide deck problems. They require lived experience, deep expertise, and on-the-ground judgment and execution.
  
  
• Leading businesses through culture and organisational change at scale. It’s coaching senior leaders to adopt new ways of working, embedding new processes across diverse teams, and ensuring that strategy translates into real, measurable results.

Try automating that.

I’ve been called in by CEOs many times for one reason: the outside view. And the questions were about judgment and anticipation.

• “How do you think we’re doing?”
• “Are we missing something?”
• “What friction should we expect in 3, 6, 12, or 24 months?”
• “How can I handle leadership scepticism?”
• “How do clients usually respond?”
• And always: “What would you do in our position?”

Try automating that.

Here is what a commenter on LinkedIn wrote: “But so much of consulting is BS anyways.” Quoting a study, they argued that "38% of corporate executives feel comfortable letting AI make decisions on their behalf (even though we know AI likes to make stuff up)."

So not much difference to what's happening now anyway, corporate executives and boards for that matter feel comfortable outsourcing decisions to consultants and we know they make a lot of stuff up... as evident with all the BS frameworks and unsupported "theories" they are spruiking.”

Here is my response: Not in my experience. While in some corners of management consulting, there’s been a reputation for hand-waving, that’s a very narrow slice of a much broader industry.

We work with consulting firms in, e.g., IT modernisation, supply chain optimisation, PPM, post-merger ERP integrations, financial security, risk management in banking, revenue data and analytics – and many more.

These are high-stakes environments. If they were making things up, they simply wouldn’t stay in business. So let's not confuse the experts with the wannabes. 

Recommended reading: The Ultimate Guide to Consulting Value Proposition Design

How AI Is Reshaping the Consulting Industry

Yes, the consulting model is evolving rapidly. AI is reshaping how consulting firms deliver value. It’s less about generating faster slide decks and more about capturing expertise, systematising insights, and reducing dependence on brute-force headcount.

Some consulting firms are turning their methods into codified tools. Others are building internal AI copilots to support delivery at scale. The boldest are redesigning their service model entirely, blending human expertise with machine intelligence to deliver faster, more repeatable outcomes with fewer people.

There's no doubt, AI is transforming consulting. And you know what? We love it. We are in the trenches of that transformation. We love having access to tools that can take care of the boring stuff that previously had to be handled manually. It frees up more of our time to focus on the work that actually matters: solving complex problems, advising clients on critical decisions, and applying judgment and experience where it counts. 

Application Examples

So while AI can handle many repetitive tasks, consulting itself – a multi-billion dollar industry solving real, high-stakes business problems – is very much alive.

In our work with consulting firms, I see that it’s not so much about AI versus humans. Rather, it’s about AI with humans. For example:

• Many data and analytics firms now utilise AI tools to clean data and build charts. This allows them to reduce hours spent on tedious tasks. Their consultants then focus on interpreting the findings, contextualising them for the client, and recommending actionable strategies.
  
  
• We’ve seen consulting firms use AI to create a functional archive of internal knowledge. Past project learnings, case studies, and expert insights can be indexed and surfaced instantly. This means consultants don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every project. They can simply access best practices and lessons learned.
  
  
• AI can help drastically reduce the amount of time spent on operational tasks: scheduling, project tracking, resource allocation, internal reporting, and so on. AI facilitating such routine work frees up consultancies’ time towards client strategy, relationship management, and execution.

Yes, clients’ expectations are changing. Yes, many things that they hired consulting firms in the past to handle are now being executed by AI tools. What can’t be replaced though – and never could be – is expertise, judgment, creativity, empathy, or stakeholder management, to name a few. 

My fellow readers and network members on LinkedIn tend to agree with my assessment of the state of consulting vis-a-vis advancements in AI:

• “What AI can and should do is strip out the operational drag, the slide factories, and the illusion that volume equals value, Luk. But we all know that real consulting begins where playbooks end. It requires presence, judgment, and often the uncomfortable task of telling the truth when no one else will.”
  
  
• “Completely agree.. Yes AI has made analysing data easier and preparing fancy report, but that is not consulting.. As a consultant you need to understand the stated and unstated problems and find a solution that works. Sometimes solution is evolved over multiple rounds of discussion. Can AI understand unstated problems.”
  
  
• “As a brand consultant, I think what AI - both the reality, and the hype - is doing is forcing me to think about the real value that I and my team bring to our clients. Sure, some of that is research and analysis. Frameworks and tools. Solutions and statements. The creative outputs and marketing plans. And probably most - maybe all - of that could be delivered by an AI tool with some push and pull. But that senior leader who needs to eyeball someone who's been there and done it before, ask them: "What do you see?" / "What really needs to change?" I don't see that going anywhere anytime soon.”

Beyond the AI Noise: The Complex Reality of Consulting’s Recent Struggles

What we have seen and observed in the past year is that if AI has contributed to challenges in consulting revenue and growth, it's primarily been due to the hesitation caused by the pervasive AI noise, which has led to clients delaying decisions to hire consultants. 

Beyond this, many of the recent growth struggles in certain consulting expertise domains (though certainly not all) stem from a confluence of broader economic factors, including global economic pressures, disrupted global supply chains, and budget cuts on the client side, to name a few.

Furthermore, consulting firms have faced hiring challenges in securing top experts, and the post-COVID revenue decline, following an incredible boom immediately after the pandemic, has also played a significant role, factors often overlooked by those who singularly blame AI for consulting's struggles.

Preparing for the Inevitable AI Questions

Irrespective of one’s position on AI, one thing is undeniable: AI is now part of the conversation. Prospects, existing clients, procurement teams, and C-level executives are going to ask questions like:

• “How are you using AI in your work?”
• “Will AI replace your team?”
• “Why should we pay for humans when a machine can do it faster?”

In my opinion, instead of avoiding or redirecting these questions (which can cost them credibility), consulting firms should be prepared to address them directly and cohesively.

Consultancies don’t need to pretend AI doesn’t exist. I also discourage consulting firms from overhyping it. Instead, it’s about showing that the consultancy is using AI thoughtfully and strategically – as a tool that enhances the process, not as one that replaces human expertise.

It will serve consulting firms well if they can illustrate their point with examples of case studies where AI supported their work yet the outcome relied on human expertise. 

In Conclusion

Consulting isn’t dying. What is happening is far more interesting. AI is helping reshape the consulting industry. It’s being reimagined by people who care deeply about doing it better.

There is no avoiding the future of consulting. Yes, some consultancies will struggle – the slide-heavy, junior-stacked model will continue getting under pressure. That’s a good thing because it sharpens the industry as a whole. It removes the low-value work. It puts a spotlight on consulting businesses that deliver transformational value.

I believe that the consulting industry will be thriving because consulting firms will learn to work smarter, better, and faster with AI by their side. And I, for one, am excited about the future of the industry.

Interested in receiving all our learnings to build a better consulting firm?
Subscribe to our newsletter.