Consultants exist because sometimes you need help from an expert. AI is an expert in most things. Are consultants still needed?
We’ve had libraries for a long time. Libraries are filled with expert knowledge on infinite topics. The bottleneck has always been someone’s ability to consume the knowledge. AI shifts the bottleneck to someone’s ability to focus, learn, and make decisions.
If consultants have always been 2 steps ahead of their customers, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be with AI. We just have to redefine what the steps are.
A consultant used to be ahead of you because they had read more books on a topic. They also had more experience with that topic. You had access to the same books, they just focused.
The AI powered person of the future can still specialize. AI will help them specialize in more things. It should shrink the number of people you need on projects. Each person should be able to do more. Smaller teams have always been a good thing.
The idea that we won’t need experts anymore doesn’t compute for me. The experts will just get 10x better. They will be faster and cover a bigger surface area.
People think consultants will go away because there are many horrible consultants. Most non-boutique consulting firms are absolute trash. They think customers are dumb. They take advantage of customer weaknesses to throw bodies at problems, and many are not equipped to solve the problems they hired to solve. This bread of consultants will disappear.
What won’t disappear is the consultant who shows up and asks great questions. The one who takes the time to deeply understand the problems you’re trying to solve. The ones who execute with certainty and velocity you can’t match.
Let’s take an ERP project as an example. You could spend time building a bunch of agents to help you do the project, but you know an expert has already done that. You still benefit from having that expert guide you. Let them light up the right tools and workflows at the right time.
Consultants also need to change the way they charge, but that’s a topic for another day.