The Future of Consulting in the Age of Generative AI

The Transformative Shift in Consulting

Consulting is undergoing one of its most significant upheavals in decades. The profession, long defined by premium human capital, codified frameworks, and tight-lipped mystique, is beginning to contort under the weight of generative AI. This disruption is different from anything we have experienced prior to this. It reaches beyond productivity gains or digital enhancement. What we are witnessing is the slow erosion of the consultant as the sole gatekeeper of knowledge.

McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, and their ilk are not playing. This isn’t merely tinkering with AI integrations. They are rebuilding themselves from within, reshaping workflows, altering team structures, and reconsidering what clients actually pay for.

AI is no longer peripheral. Organisations that aren’t embracing it will find themselves falling behind, becoming archaic in their evolutionary thinking.

Are Junior Consultants Obsolete?

Traditionally, junior consultants were the workhorses of the industry. They churned through data, constructed slide decks, trawled through market reports, and painstakingly put in the hours. All to deliver neatly packaged insights, some obvious, others transformational.

But generative AI has changed the texture of that work. Systems like McKinsey’s proprietary chatbot, Lilli, are capable of scanning internal knowledge bases, retrieving precedent, and summarising findings in polished, presentation-ready prose. Better still, they write in the McKinsey tone.

The result? Work that took days now takes minutes.

One might be tempted to romanticise the analyst years as a rite of passage. Many consultants still recall their early 20s with a kind of hazy reverence. However, there is no sacredness in inefficiency. When the machine is faster, cheaper, and correct, sentimentality doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Consequently, McKinsey’s headcount has contracted from 45,000 to 40,000 within two years. This is no temporary freeze. It’s structural realignment reminiscent of the systemic one at play. Fewer juniors. Leaner teams supported by AI systems that do the heavy lifting quietly, invisibly.

AI as Intellectual Infrastructure

Beyond efficiency, AI is reshaping how value is created and priced. Consulting firms are gradually drifting away from time-based billing, especially for transformation or operations-heavy work. Outcome-based engagements, once niche, are now standardising, tying fees to impact.

This shift is not coincidental. AI enables measurement at a granularity previously impossible. You can quantify uplift. You can track adoption. You can simulate performance before anything launches.

When insights become outputs and dashboards update in real-time, clients begin to expect more than theoretical advice. There is something exhilarating, almost intoxicating, about watching generative AI produce multidimensional insights on the fly. Not only are they faster; they’re more layered, more contextual, more analytical. But, dead behind the eyes? Possibly. Lacking nuance? Certainly. Do clients care? Perhaps. Perhaps not… Not if they’re getting the results, specifically at a more rapid speed, with potential cost savings.

The Need for AI-Native Processes and People

To avoid being commoditised, firms are locking in clients through proprietary ecosystems. It’s no longer enough to be AI-literate; you must be AI-native. BCG has GENE and Deckster. Deloitte uses Sidekick and Ascend. PwC has built AgentOS. These tools are designed not just to improve internal operations but to make client reliance on firm-specific tech irreversible.

The game is in motion. It is one of lock-in by design. The ecosystem becomes the service. The value lies not in what consultants know, but in what their platforms can continuously do, automate, suggest, forecast, and compare.

There is also an ego at play here. Firms want to prove they can build, not just advise. Clients are increasingly sceptical of theoretical strategy that doesn’t translate into tooling. In this environment, a slick AI interface might carry as much prestige as an MBA from a Russell Group institution.

The Rapid Pivot of Client Expectations

The relationship between client and consultant is shifting too. The old model, built on knowledge asymmetry, is eroding. With open access to GPT-based tools, clients can now perform the sort of exploratory analysis that once required a £250,000 engagement.

So what do they actually need from a consultant? Judgement. Discernment. The ability to decide what matters and how it can be executed. It’s no longer sufficient to arrive with a 60-slide deck and a list of options. Clients are looking for interpreters, editors, and provocateurs—people who can sort signal from noise and impose strategic clarity on a world that’s moving too fast for consensus thinking.

There’s a certain charisma required here. A confident humility. An instinct for knowing when to trust the model and when to throw it out. This is where the future of consulting lies: not in the generation of ideas, but in the choreography of insight.

Niching Up

While the giants build their fortresses, a wave of boutique firms is quietly eating their lunch. Startups like Xavier AI, Monevate, and Slideworks don’t arrive in suits. They don’t care much for slide decks. Their pitch is speed, specificity, and results. Many were founded by ex-consultants who tired of bureaucracy and saw that AI could do 70% of the work, if not more, without requiring five layers of internal review.

These firms tend to specialise. Pricing strategy. Go-to-market sequencing. Proposal generation. They build micro-tools and deploy them fast. Clients, especially mid-market and tech-savvy, like the transparency and the price tag.

Legacy firms would struggle to emulate this model without cannibalising themselves. That’s the dilemma. You can’t be McKinsey and Slideworks at once.

What Becomes of the Consultant?

With AI capable of research, synthesis, and even persuasion, does the human consultant become an ornament? A talking head on top of a machine? Some fear this. Many see an opportunity, whether for professional development or quickly gaining an edge on the competition. Most recognise the renaissance.

When you remove the grunt work, what’s left is space for real thinking. Consultants become pattern recognisers, advisors in the classical sense. Their value is no longer measured in output but in perspective, in ambiguity, and in the sharpness of their questions.

In a world flooded with content, discernment becomes currency. Consultants will need new muscles. Comfort with complexity. Tolerance for uncertainty. The ability to look at a dashboard and say, “That’s interesting, but not relevant.” The best ones will sound less like analysts and more like philosophers or novelists, able to distil chaos into narrative.

No Passing Trend

We must come to realise that AI is not a passing trend. Generative AI has permanently altered the substrate of consulting. The work looks different. The teams are smaller. The margins are thinner. And the expectations, both internal and external, are escalating.

The winners won’t be the ones with the best models. They’ll be the ones who understand what models can’t do and how they can fill those gaps. The future belongs to firms that know when to use AI and when to turn it off. They must understand silence as a strategic tool and treat ambiguity not as a flaw to be corrected, but as a condition to be managed.

Consulting will survive. It always does. But it will sound different, feel different, and look very different from the war-room days of old. And frankly, it will be better for it.

I invite you to consider how Withers & Sloane can support your journey. Whether you need a quick consultation or long-term, integrated support, we aim to be your go-to partner for boosting your marketing and branding efforts, helping you make a real impact in your market.

Contact our team at info@witherssloane.com