Topic
4 essays in this series
AI doesn't make the consulting pyramid more efficient. It puts the pyramid under structural pressure it was not designed to absorb. The firms that adapt earliest will not optimize the old model — they will begin replacing it.
Consulting expertise and consulting labor are distinct economic goods. The pyramid has bundled them together for so long that most firms have stopped noticing the difference. AI is forcing the unbundling.
The time-and-materials model is not just a pricing mechanism. It is a lens that exposes a structural misalignment between how consulting firms spend effort and where clients perceive value.
AI-native is becoming the kind of phrase that means everything and therefore nothing. The organizations that will benefit from AI as a structural competitive advantage are those that have built something more substantive than a portfolio of AI tools sitting on top of traditional processes.