For hundreds of years, the consulting profession has remained largely unchanged, but according to industry veteran Eric Kimberling, who has been in the field for 30 years, consulting as we know it is fundamentally broken and effectively “dead”. While technological shifts like the Y2K bug, the dot-com boom, and cloud migrations have transformed what consultants do, today’s rise of artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing how consulting works.

Here is why the traditional consulting model is dying and what the future holds for both firms and their clients.

Knowledge is Becoming a Commodity

The primary reason the traditional consulting model is collapsing is that knowledge is no longer exclusive. Historically, companies hired consultants to bridge a massive gap in knowledge and experience. Today, generative and agentic AI tools—like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini—can scrape, summarize, and consolidate the world’s leading minds for just $20 to $30 a month.

Because AI enables clients to access and process massive amounts of information in seconds, the perception that “knowledge is a commodity” has become reality. The divide between the expert and the client is shrinking rapidly.

An Outdated, Misaligned Business Model

The traditional consulting business model is severely inefficient and inherently misaligned with client outcomes. When consultants are paid by the hour for their knowledge, there is a financial incentive to take longer to deliver that value.

This model is essentially designed for “bloat”. It incentivizes firms to turn what could be a five-person job into a twenty-person project, maximizing billable hours at the customer’s expense. With the advent of AI, easy access to templates, and automated processes, the glaring inefficiencies and misaligned goals of this traditional structure are finally being exposed.

The Era of “Creative Destruction” and Tools

If consultants can no longer just sell knowledge, what exactly are they selling? The answer lies in tools, frameworks, and actionable approaches that can be utilized with or without the consultant’s direct involvement.

Firms must now embrace the concept of “creative destruction”—the idea of proactively destroying and replacing your own outdated products or services before a competitor does. Small to mid-sized consulting firms are expected to lead this charge, offering specialized toolsets to clients who prefer a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach. In contrast, large incumbent firms, with hundreds of thousands of employees globally, have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and may struggle to adapt.

The Shift in Power to the Client

Ultimately, the disruption of the consulting industry is phenomenal news for customers. For decades, some consulting firms preyed on a client’s inexperience, operating behind a curtain of secrecy to justify bloated teams and extended timelines.

As that curtain evaporates, the balance of power is shifting entirely to the client. Customers will no longer suffer from a “learned helplessness” dependent on outside experts. Instead, they can take extreme ownership of their projects, armed with affordable, scalable tools and AI.

For the modern enterprise, this means greater cost savings, highly optimized projects, and access to consulting solutions that are actually aligned with their business goals.