Large consulting firms continue to offer their services by the hour. But… lo and behold! Their current competition, algorithms, doesn’t even charge for a minute… and sometimes they do much more. AI in business consulting… is it a turbocharged rocket… or is it its most discreet, pure, and lethal poison?
Let’s analyze the paradigm and in the end you will be able to make a judgment yourself.
While most junior consultants spend hours searching for data, distilling and matching it to their client, and then creating eye-catching presentations, a well-trained AI has already done in-depth research, structured the information ad hoc for the client, compiled the report, put together the presentation, and even suggested conclusions… in less than half the time.
Are we witnessing the decline of traditional consulting?
I. Bill for lost time?
The average consultant spends 19% of their time searching for information and up to 70% preparing presentations. In contrast, their senior clients spend 2.5 hours a week reading reports.
That’s not consulting. It’s a waste of person-hours. It’s the work of worker ants. An absurd slowness in the midst of an AI paradigm moving at the speed of light.
And we’re not just talking about one type of consultant, like financial or legal consultants. Marketing, business, sustainability, and other consultants also suffer from the same problem because they have historically based much of their offering on highly designed, but sometimes low-impact, deliverables.
Now that artificial intelligence in consulting can automate a significant portion of the work—with precision, speed, and a professional aesthetic—the question isn’t whether the model is changing…
The question is whether there’s anything left to collect in a paradigm where AI is killing the concept of charging based on hours and extensive reports and suggestions.
II. AI in business consulting: from full team to single prompt
With AI tools that can be extraordinary for business like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, combined with presentation creators like Gamma, a consultant can emulate the work of an entire cell:
- Documentary research
- Strategic analysis
- Customer-specific adaptation
- Executive summaries
- Generating presentations with narrative and visuals
This is especially true in strategic consulting, where deliverables have historically been sold as products in themselves.
But not everything is rosy…
The problem isn’t that super tools exist today.
The problem is confusing tool accessibility with expertise in a field. Let’s explain this…
III. The new “consultant without a scalpel”
We live in a time where looking brilliant is easier than ever.
With three well-tuned prompts, you can create a perfectly structured report, packed with technical language, elegant references, and strategic-sounding recommendations.
You can literally sound like a McKinsey senior. But you’re not.
And that’s the problem.
I have an acquaintance— he markets himself as a senior business consultant —who processes all his deliverables using ChatGPT. The result? Impeccable texts and well-structured documents… but sometimes with delusional ideas. Recommendations that are impossible to implement, suggestions that are out of context, and a total disconnect from the client’s reality. This is a testament to those who don’t know how to use AI.
The worst part? Your clients don’t even notice at first.
Because the document is so well written.
Because the AI writes like a Harvard graduate, even though it doesn’t think like a Harvard professional, even if you assign it that role in the prompt.
You are the pilot, the AI is your assistant, not the other way around.
AI can write like an expert without being one; because expertise isn’t just knowledge, it’s experience, it’s instinct, it’s analysis of what the machine often doesn’t perceive. AI is the assistant, not the expert, but there are those who play it the other way around. And that’s extremely dangerous.
🔸 They may suggest using technologies that don’t even exist in your market.
🔸 They may recommend partnerships that aren’t viable due to cultural or legal frameworks.
🔸 They may ignore political tensions or the tone of the social environment.
Not because she’s stupid, but because she doesn’t live in your reality.
And if you don’t have the judgment and experience to filter, you’ll deliver documents that are beautiful… but empty, ethereal. Or worse: damaging.
This is the new risk of the “consultant without a scalpel”: operating without knowing anatomy, relying only on the answers in the manual.
AI is the scalpel.
But you, the consultant, are still the surgeon.
And if you’re not a highly skilled professional, you’re bound to cut where you shouldn’t.
IV. One step further: What will happen when customers also master AI?
It is worth asking an awkward question following up on the previous point:
Today, those of us who are a step ahead in AI are spending many hours a day learning and using it, so we know how to leverage it even if we’re not experts. We know how to use reasoning models, perform effective searches, apply deep thinking, and with that, we automate processes.
In other words, we can do rapid consulting that sounds intelligent… and seems so… and yes, it often can be. You apply this consulting every day in your work if you solve problems, or you apply it externally, with clients…
But how long will it be before customers themselves discover that they can do exactly the same thing on their own?
At that point, how many consultants will lose their gold mine simply because their advantage was only operational, not strategic?
When that happens—and it will!—the difference will no longer be knowing how to use the tool, but knowing how to think with it.
And that will be the new battleground for AI in business consulting … although not everyone will succeed. It takes intelligence, skill, and talent.
V. So… is consulting dead in the future?
No. But part of it does.
The part that sold hours and hours of research and then manufactured slides.
The part that hid behind analysis to avoid offering sound guidelines.
The part that believed itself indispensable for speaking complexly.
What’s left is not less consulting.
It’s better consulting!
The consultant capable of interpreting what AI can’t see: politics, culture, human nuances.
The one who designs strategy, not just deliverables.
The one who can challenge the AI model, analyzing its deliverables through their expertise and adjusting them before passing them on to the client. That consultant will survive!
VI. The AI opportunity in business consulting (if you’re willing to earn it)
AI isn’t here to replace you.
It’s here to leave you without excuses.
Because now that the tools are available to everyone, it’s no longer about who has the most data, but rather who has the best judgment in using it.
It’s no longer about delivering flawless documents, but rather about offering a vision that combines machine and human.
Digital transformation in consulting isn’t a threat, it’s a filter: it separates those who merely deliver from those who merely interpret.
Consulting doesn’t die.
Smoke dies.
And you, are you going to continue selling hours… or are you going to sell real expertise?
