For me it seems a funny story, but I could find only a slim resemblance of it to the "real consulting world". I am working as a consultant for decades, but I have never bee paid for "writing a white paper", or providing "one off advice", or "prepare a plan/roadmap" only. And those projects, when only this was my task were the unsuccessful ones.
I have always been paid to "bring out the best collaborative solution" with the client. I.e. whether my task was to make a Feasibility Study, a Program Definition, a Business Requirements Analysis, or Managing a Project (with whatever scope), etc. it has ALWAYS been a collaboration with the client. And my task was to bring client stakeholders, business and IT pelple together to work on the collaborative solution.
Of course, we are using AI tools ourselves;
of course, part of our job nowadays is to navigate our clients through the AI mist;
of course, both the subject as well as the tools of our work will change.
But the essence not: "To bring out the best collaborative solution" WITH the client and stakeholders
So I am not worrying about the future of my profession...
This maps closely to something Nadia Asparouhova has written about. When systems get more powerful, what matters most isn’t advice volume but legibility, knowing when the map is no longer faithful to the terrain.
The Peru story is a perfect example of drift. The tool optimized for speed and efficiency, but lost fidelity to context, risk, and human consequence. Nothing was wrong with the recommendation, it was just incomplete in a way that only shows up at the edge.
That feels like the real future of consulting to me. Not expertise as answers, but humans as systemic drift detectors, helping organizations notice when optimization is quietly misaligning incentives, values, or judgment.
AI is exceptional at contextual tips. What it still can’t do is tell you when to slow down, when to ignore the fastest route, or when the system itself is asking the wrong question.
Great analogy. I think consultancies are going to remain popular, but they are going to change in the aggregate. And lots of pressure already on scaled analyst models like Gartner.
Years ago, I used Google Maps in far-fetched town's mountain. I decided to take the "shortest" route, which turned out to be really slanted and we even needed to use our hands to climb. Next time we attempt any mountains, we are moving to AllTrails, which show elevations much better.
I don't know - a lot of Govt departments use the big 4 because they are risk adverse and hide behind the advice given - a good consultant will uncover a lot of domain expertise within a department and surface that - sure AI can now do that - however the risk factor is still culturally inbuilt - otherwise the big 4 wouldn't be on AOG panels now as Govt would be using their own staff to solution and design better.
A great story and a great message. Thanks for this post. I loved the mix of a relevant analogy, a personal story, and a pointed message directed at the target audience of this substack! The message landed for me, and made me think about how to use these new LLM tools instead of being replaced by them. Thank you.
For me it seems a funny story, but I could find only a slim resemblance of it to the "real consulting world". I am working as a consultant for decades, but I have never bee paid for "writing a white paper", or providing "one off advice", or "prepare a plan/roadmap" only. And those projects, when only this was my task were the unsuccessful ones.
I have always been paid to "bring out the best collaborative solution" with the client. I.e. whether my task was to make a Feasibility Study, a Program Definition, a Business Requirements Analysis, or Managing a Project (with whatever scope), etc. it has ALWAYS been a collaboration with the client. And my task was to bring client stakeholders, business and IT pelple together to work on the collaborative solution.
Of course, we are using AI tools ourselves;
of course, part of our job nowadays is to navigate our clients through the AI mist;
of course, both the subject as well as the tools of our work will change.
But the essence not: "To bring out the best collaborative solution" WITH the client and stakeholders
So I am not worrying about the future of my profession...
:-)
This maps closely to something Nadia Asparouhova has written about. When systems get more powerful, what matters most isn’t advice volume but legibility, knowing when the map is no longer faithful to the terrain.
The Peru story is a perfect example of drift. The tool optimized for speed and efficiency, but lost fidelity to context, risk, and human consequence. Nothing was wrong with the recommendation, it was just incomplete in a way that only shows up at the edge.
That feels like the real future of consulting to me. Not expertise as answers, but humans as systemic drift detectors, helping organizations notice when optimization is quietly misaligning incentives, values, or judgment.
AI is exceptional at contextual tips. What it still can’t do is tell you when to slow down, when to ignore the fastest route, or when the system itself is asking the wrong question.
Great analogy. I think consultancies are going to remain popular, but they are going to change in the aggregate. And lots of pressure already on scaled analyst models like Gartner.
Years ago, I used Google Maps in far-fetched town's mountain. I decided to take the "shortest" route, which turned out to be really slanted and we even needed to use our hands to climb. Next time we attempt any mountains, we are moving to AllTrails, which show elevations much better.
I don't know - a lot of Govt departments use the big 4 because they are risk adverse and hide behind the advice given - a good consultant will uncover a lot of domain expertise within a department and surface that - sure AI can now do that - however the risk factor is still culturally inbuilt - otherwise the big 4 wouldn't be on AOG panels now as Govt would be using their own staff to solution and design better.
A great story and a great message. Thanks for this post. I loved the mix of a relevant analogy, a personal story, and a pointed message directed at the target audience of this substack! The message landed for me, and made me think about how to use these new LLM tools instead of being replaced by them. Thank you.
This comes at the right time; I'm currently thinking a lot about my path ahead...
As always, thanks Jurgen!