Consultant, heal thyself

AI’s consulting conundrum: From human experts to AI advisors—And the jobs, industries, and corporate strategies caught in between.

Author

Malcolm Frank, CEO
July 07, 2025

Consultant, heal thyself

I once had a doctor who smoked: a real Marlboro Red chainsmoker. Sure, it was the 90s, but still. Every visit, with a voice like gravel in a blender, he’d fat-shame me with a BMI chart that seemed designed for sparrows. He was a skilled physician, no doubt, but the irony was glaring.

Consulting firms now embody a similar irony. Their model, based on pyramids of knowledge workers with marked-up bill rates, feels like a relic in the AI era. The market agrees: over the past two years, the Magnificent Seven’s valuations have surged 104%, and the S&P 500 has climbed 27%. Meanwhile, IT services giants? Their stocks have barely twitched. The consultants claim front-row seats to the AI revolution; the smart money begs to differ.

Where do professional services go from here? That’s the $64,000 question, and nobody has a clear answer.

I make a habit of reading or watching nearly everything the global systems integrators produce. (I know.) These days most of it is…stunningly dull.  Convoluted and over-PR’ed.

Such rhetoric reminds me of an earlier era, when cloud computing gained traction. The IT establishment at the time (e.g. IBM, Oracle, and SAP) insisted they’d dominate. Yet, they couldn’t articulate clear value propositions and framed the cloud as impossibly complex (security! integration! standards!), requiring a vast array of their proprietary products. Of course, they lost big to outsiders: the online bookstore, the Xbox maker, and the search engine. These disruptors started with first principles-thinking, solving small problems with ruthless efficiency.

The same shift is brewing in consulting. The old model is fracturing. By 2035, consulting will likely remain a massive industry, but the leaders atop the league tables may well have unfamiliar names.

Who needs consultants in the age of AI?

Having made a fortune by telling others how to adapt to newfangled tech, from the internet to cloud computing, Accenture now faces the same predicament.

India’s top IT firms lean towards IP-led growth as GenAI shrinks the pyramid

What used to be a heavy-bottomed pyramid is gradually morphing into a leaner hourglass, with automation consuming routine work at the base.  

The new CEO flex: Bragging that AI handles exactly X% of the work

Citing numbers showing that AI is doing heavy lifting internally. The move presents the company as being ahead of the AI curve—and invariably grabs the attention of people who matter.

“I'm being paid to fix issues caused by AI”

The hot growth market for contractors: cleaning up after AI.

Companies keep slashing jobs. How worried should workers be about AI replacing them?

“AI isn't just taking jobs. It's really rewriting the rule book on what work even looks like right now.”

Ford CEO: “AI is going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the US”

“AI will leave a lot of white collar people behind. And we have to acknowledge that these new technologies are great, they’ll make a lot of people’s lives better, even people in the essential economy, but what are we going to do as a society for the people that it leaves behind?”

Intel’s former CEO Pat Gelsinger says he underestimated the impact of AI 

A misstep that left Team Blue struggling to catch up.

2025 State of AI report: The builder’s playbook

Iconiq Capital’s practical roadmap for enterprise AI adoption.

How AI is transforming corporate finance

And how CFOs can stay ahead. 

Agent of the Week: Replit Agent

Simplify app development with AI-driven code generation.

Goldman Sachs: Software market forecast to expand 20% as AI agents boost productivity

The profit pool in the software industry will quickly shift to agents at the expense of SaaS. 

Laid-off workers should use AI to manage their emotions, says Xbox exec

Microsoft has crisis PR on speed-dial.  

How companies are rethinking their vetting of engineering candidates in the age of AI coding tools

“AI doesn’t just level the playing field, it tilts towards those that can adapt quickly.” Embracing AI means “anybody can be left behind the same way that anybody can leap forward.”

3 industries where agentic AI is poised to make its mark

CIOs from finance, retail and healthcare discuss how they see AI impacting their organizations and sectors overall. 

Case study: Capital One builds agentic AI to supercharge auto sales

Our agents act like “a team of experts where each of them has a different expertise and comes together to solve a problem.”

Pixar's chief creative officer says AI is “the least impressive blah average of things”

Not everyone believes AI spells the end for animators.

China is quickly eroding America’s lead in the global AI race

Chinese artificial-intelligence companies are loosening the U.S.’s global stranglehold on AI, challenging American superiority and setting the stage for a global arms race in the technology.

And one more thing…

Best AI tools for planning a vacation in 2025

Vacation planning can be overwhelming, juggling itineraries, routes, and documents. AI tools simplify these tasks, customize plans, and boost trip efficiency.

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