An AI Wall for Management Consulting?

I worked in management consulting for 25 years. We lived by the mantra, “change is good for consulting”. That line always held true — until now, as AI makes the change feel fundamentally different.

The age of management consulting as we know it — where swarms of consultants grind through endless ppt decks and spreadsheets — is beginning to give way to a new model: part human (for senior insight), part AI bot (for junior work).

Nowadays, I have little doubt that the traditional management consulting model — built on adding more consultants to bill for more hours — has peaked after hitting the AI wall.

For any business to succeed, it must deliver perceived value. In practice, much of consulting work involves affirming, supplementing, or executing decisions already made by management. And there is no doubt this has long been a necessary service — board members and C-level often appreciate having third parties validate management’s choices.

But now, instead of hiring fresh MBAs, AI can handle all the crunchy work far faster, shifting the perceived value to senior-level conversations over a hot latte. And please don’t ask me how seniors become seniors without first being juniors or what happens when the talent pipeline breaks.

This week, Anthropic (a Fabrica Ventures portfolio company) and Accenture (the consulting giant) struck an AI deal to help businesses realize a positive return on their AI investments.

Read generously, you could say Accenture’s leadership is embracing the reality that consulting will be radically reshaped in a world where corporate AI adoption is ubiquitous — and adjusting accordingly. Read ungenerously, you could say they are training their replacements.

Conclusion

Management consulting won’t disappear, but its 1:10 labor pyramid probably will.

It will be interesting to watch how management-consultant employment evolves throughout the AI transition.