Consulting's Survival Crisis

Pierre Pourquery
2 days ago
6 min read

AI, People, and the Path Forward

The consulting industry, worth over $300 billion globally, stands at a critical inflection point. Two converging crises (one technological, one human) are simultaneously threatening the survival of traditional consulting models.

While much attention has focused on AI's disruptive potential, a deeper, more insidious problem has been festering: consulting firms are systematically damaging their most valuable asset, their people.

Part I: The AI Transformation

Artificial intelligence isn't just another tool; it's fundamentally reshaping the value proposition and survival prospects of firms across the industry. To understand this transformation, we must recognize that not all consulting firms are created equal.

The Three Archetypes

The Artists (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) tackle ambiguous, complex problems where the path forward is unclear. They bring intellectual horsepower, proprietary frameworks, and cross-industry pattern recognition to corporate strategy, M&A, and organizational transformation.

The Plumbers (Big Four and similar) serve clients who already know their answers but need institutional credibility to validate decisions and build consensus. They excel at regulation, compliance, audit, and large-scale transformation programs where credibility matters more than creativity.

The Doers (Accenture, Capgemini, Microsoft Consulting) deliver functioning systems and platforms. They turn vision into code, strategy into software, combining consulting acumen with engineering capability.

AI's Differential Impact

The Artists face a paradox. In the short term, AI enhances productivity. In the long term, it may be their greatest competitor. Management consulting already burns through people; average tenure at McKinsey is just 2-3 years with 70-80 hour weeks. Now add AI anxiety: when AI can analyze datasets in seconds, perform benchmarking instantly, and draft strategy frameworks, what's the human value proposition?

Today's large language models can already conduct Porter's Five Forces analysis, suggest growth strategies, and identify threats. As systems improve exponentially, we could see the "Uberization" of strategy consulting: democratized, on-demand, and a fraction of the cost.

The Artists who survive will reposition from "analysts who think" to "facilitators who inspire and align." AI can't yet read boardroom power dynamics, influence resistant executives, or inspire middle management to embrace transformation.

The Plumbers face mounting pressure. As AI democratizes analytical insights and regulatory intelligence, clients question why they're paying $300 per hour for automatable work. Source Global Research found 68% of buyers plan to reduce spending on traditional advisory services. Boutique firms are leveraging AI to operate with 40-60% lower costs while delivering comparable quality.

The existential question: Can they transform fast enough? The challenge isn't technological; it's cultural and organizational. Changing 100,000+ person organizations is extraordinarily difficult.

The Doers face the most favorable scenario. AI addresses their core challenges: high cost, long timelines, and scope misalignment. AI coding assistants generate substantial portions of codebases, with developers reporting 30-50% productivity gains. Projects that took 12 months now take 6-8 months; $3 million applications cost $1.8 million.

The remaining human imperative: understanding what to build. AI can't yet conduct deep stakeholder interviews, navigate organizational politics, or translate ambiguous requirements into clear specifications.

Part II: The Hidden Crisis: People

While AI dominates headlines, a more fundamental crisis has been quietly destroying consulting from within. Despite people being their main assets, firms have done a very poor job managing them.

The Failed Promise of Leverage

Traditional consulting businesses tried creating leverage by packaging knowledge and automating processes. Most failed because: it was never taken seriously enough (why change a profitable model?), knowledge sharing threatened individual job security, and transforming unstructured information into structured frameworks is exceptionally difficult.

Consequence: consulting models rely entirely on people to create value; and they've been systematically failing those people.

The Crisis in Numbers

52% of finance professionals report high burnout and poor work-life balance
75% wouldn't recommend their profession to younger generations
83% have considered changing jobs due to mental health concerns; half followed through

This affects all levels. Juniors face AI anxiety and limited apprenticeship opportunities. Mid-grades experience crushing workloads. Partners burn out from impossible demands.

The Exodus of Experts

The people who should be most carefully nurtured (the gurus and real experts) are being pushed out. They typically have lower commercial acumen and limited time for business development given the need to stay expert.

They deserve partner-level compensation since clients value them more, but because their margin and sales impact is limited, they struggle to survive.

The Forced Exit of Senior Partners

Senior partners with significant experience and networks are being asked to retire at 55 60. Yet aren't these people key to opening doors, providing trusted advice, and giving confidence to clients' boards?

Part III: The Root Causes

Matrix management creates impossible tensions. Professionals report to multiple managers simultaneously, each with different priorities and deadlines. "I have three managers, each expecting me to prioritize their projects. When I focus on one, the other two are disappointed."

The collaboration-competition paradox. Employees must collaborate deeply with colleagues they're simultaneously competing against for promotions. The cognitive dissonance is profound: share knowledge freely while knowing your performance is constantly compared to those same teammates.

Cultural factors amplify damage:

70-80 hour weeks remain standard
Technology eliminated work-life boundaries; emails at midnight, weekend availability expected
Post-pandemic staff reductions left skeleton crews managing the same workload
Automation raised expectations for output rather than reducing workload

The Artists monitor team mental health monthly or weekly and deploy sophisticated remediation including organizational dynamics coaching. But the new generation won't work long hours without strong purpose. They want work-life balance and need to believe in what they're doing.

The Plumbers are typically bad at managing people, far too obsessed with numbers. People become spreadsheet entries. They overcomplicate metrics and use pulse surveys as proxies for genuine management.

Why Current Solutions Fail

Wellness initiatives (meditation apps, mental health days, free fruit) treat symptoms, not causes. "Wellness initiatives are offered, but they fail to address the real issue; the workload itself is unsustainable." You can't meditate your way out of a 75-hour workweek.

Part IV: The Path Forward

Tactical Moves Are Necessary But Insufficient

Essential steps include redefining success metrics beyond billable hours, leadership modeling healthy boundaries, creating psychological safety, right-sizing workloads, and redesigning workflow structures. But these won't deliver lasting change without something deeper.

Putting Humans at the Center of Consulting

Emotional: Recognizing people bring their whole selves to work. Acknowledging stress, validating struggles, creating space for vulnerability without penalty.

Psychological: Building environments where psychological safety is lived reality. Where speaking up about unsustainable demands is professionalism, not weakness.

Rational: Making the business case impossible to ignore. Human sustainability and business performance aren't competing priorities; they're inseparable.

Structural: Redesigning work architecture itself. Examining reporting structures, decision-making processes, reward systems, and workflows to eliminate factors that systematically generate burnout.

Core recognition: humans are at the center of everything—especially in consulting, even when current systems suggest otherwise.

The Emerging Reality

AI is restructuring the industry through margin compression at the high end, rise of AI native boutiques operating at 50% overhead, consolidation among laggards, specialization as defense, and premium pricing for uniquely human capabilities like executive presence and trust-building.

Broader Societal Questions •

How do we protect Gen Z from GenAI displacement?
How do we incentivize development of deep expertise? •
How do we keep experienced professionals working longer as lifespans increase?

Conclusion

Some firms will decline, unable to adapt. Others will thrive, leveraging AI while genuinely valuing people. But the most exciting prospect is new entrants reimagining consulting itself—building AI-native service models while treating humans as irreplaceable assets.

The firms that succeed won't add meditation apps to unsustainable workloads or deploy AI while maintaining extractive cultures. They'll fundamentally reimagine what high performance looks like when built on human sustainability rather than human extraction.

The traditional consulting model faces a crisis with its main asset: people. Without dramatic change, it may not survive; with or without the AI revolution that's already begun.

The real question:

Will firms destroy themselves through human neglect before they can adapt to technological transformation? And who will build the future that values both innovation and humanity?

Pierre Pourquery

is a seasoned financial sector professional with over 25 years of experience spanning capital markets, digital assets, and strategic transformation. He formerly led Capital Markets at EY and served as a Partner at the Boston Consulting Group for seven years. Earlier in his career, Pierre was the Global Head of Risk and Compliance at IBM, and held senior roles including Principal in Risk Management at a leading U.S. consultancy, Head of Market and Counterparty Risk at a major French bank, and Fixed-Income Trader. A published author and thought leader, Pierre regularly contributes to industry dialogue through articles, books, and speaking engagements at global conferences.