A quiet revolution is brewing in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies. Management consultants, once the undisputed oracles of business wisdom commanding eye-watering fees are watching their value proposition crumble.
Not because of market downturns or economic cycles but because of something far more disruptive: the perfect storm in which artificial intelligence collides with battle-tested industry experience.
By 2030, we won’t recognise the management consulting industry. That’s not hyperbole or clickbait—it’s what happens when AI democratises the knowledge and analytical firepower consultants have carefully guarded for generations.
Platform Enablers
- These aren’t your father’s consultants. They’re building AI platforms and products that give clients independent, scalable solutions. Instead of selling time, they provide technology that helps clients generate insights and make decisions without constant hand-holding. The value shifts from one-off advice to ongoing enablement.
Capability Builders (Interim Managers)
- These interim managers measure success by how quickly they make themselves unnecessary. They align their incentives with client outcomes and focus on transferring capabilities rather than creating dependency. Their approach blends human expertise with technology, focusing on meaningful outcomes rather than billable hours.
Outcome Guarantors (yes, Interim Managers)
- These firms have skin in the game. They tie their compensation directly to client results, using predictive modelling and forecasting tools under performance-based arrangements. This creates genuine partnerships where the interim manager’s and client’s success becomes inseparable. It fundamentally reshuffles incentives and shifts risk from clients to interim managers.
Ecosystem Orchestrators (again, Interim Managers)
- These experts tackle messy, complex challenges that span internal teams, suppliers, and partners. They use digital twins, scenario modelling, and behavioural psychology to drive collaboration, align competing interests, and optimise resources across organisational boundaries. Their value isn’t in knowing everything but in coordinating complex systems effectively.
The Advisor of the Future: From Knowledge Provider to AI Handler
As AI takes over traditional consulting tasks, consultants themselves are evolving. Rather than primarily applying their knowledge, they’re becoming “model managers” or “AI handlers”—professionals who customise AI systems for specific organisational contexts, monitor performance, and adjust as needed.
This demands an entirely different toolkit. Tomorrow’s standout consultants will excel at translating organisational needs into parameters that guide AI decision-making, creating a new form of leadership that amplifies human judgment through algorithmic implementation.
AI expert Tamarah Usher puts it starkly: “The message is clear. Consultants must evolve or become irrelevant. Success in 2025 requires unique human insights that AI cannot replicate.”
These insights will increasingly come from deep specialisation rather than general business knowledge. The days of the generalist consultant are numbered. Clients now demand experts with industry-specific knowledge who can deliver measurable results and adapt to evolving capabilities.
The Democratization of Advisory Excellence
Perhaps the most profound change is how AI democratises capabilities once reserved for consulting royalty. Small firms and interim managers can now access analytical tools and knowledge resources previously exclusive to McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
This is reshaping competitive dynamics in real-time. Boutique firms specialising in specific industries or functions can now deliver insights comparable to the giants, often with greater agility and lower cost. The moats that protected established players are drying up fast.
As one industry expert bluntly states: “Interim Managers with AI will accelerate their careers, and those that don’t use it will be left behind. That will include large firms.”
The Client Mandate: Building Internal Capabilities
For organisations working with interim managers, success in this new era demands a strategic focus on building internal capabilities. This means investing in AI platforms to develop robust analytics capabilities, establishing cross-functional governance, and focusing on metrics that measure actual value creation.
Organisations should demand capability transfer metrics to ensure long-term self-reliance. This includes upskilling internal teams to use AI and data tools effectively, ensuring they can drive innovation and adapt to future challenges. Aligning interim managers’ incentives with measurable outcomes rather than task completion reinforces this shift toward sustained value creation.
The Path Forward for Consulting Firms
For consulting firms, incremental change won’t cut it. The path forward requires fundamental transformation:
- Redefining Value Proposition
Firms must pivot from selling knowledge to enabling capabilities. This means new service offerings, pricing models, and client engagement approaches emphasising empowerment over dependency. - Embracing AI as a Core Capability
Forward-thinking firms aren’t viewing AI as a threat—they’re weaving it into every aspect of their operations. This includes developing proprietary AI tools, upskilling executives in AI applications, and creating new service offerings that blend human expertise with AI capabilities. - Restructuring Talent Models
With the pyramid structure crumbling, firms need entirely new approaches to talent. This means recruiting from non-traditional sources, creating alternative career paths, and developing compensation models that reward outcomes rather than billable hours. - Building Ecosystem Capabilities
Success increasingly depends on orchestrating complex partners, suppliers, and client networks. Firms must develop capabilities in ecosystem thinking, collaborative leadership, and multi-stakeholder engagement.
Not the End, but a Transformation
The demise of traditional management consulting doesn’t spell the end of the industry—it signals its reinvention. The fundamental need for external perspective, specialised expertise, and strategic guidance remains. What’s changing is how these needs are met.
The consulting firms that thrive in this new landscape will embrace AI as a partner to human expertise rather than a threat. They’ll develop business models that align incentives with client outcomes, build platforms that enable client independence, and nurture talent with the uniquely human capabilities that AI cannot replicate.
This transformation offers clients unprecedented opportunities to build internal capabilities, reduce dependency on external advisors, and achieve better outcomes at lower costs. The power dynamic is shifting decisively in their favour.
The question isn’t whether this transformation will happen but how quickly organisations and consulting firms adapt. Those who see AI as a tool for enhancing human capabilities rather than replacing them will be best positioned to thrive.
The era of traditional management consulting is sunsetting. A new era of AI-powered, experience-enhanced advisory services—particularly interim management—is dawning. The winners will see this shift not as a threat but as a lifetime opportunity.
Rui Serapicos
Managing Partner & Founder