Will AI replace consultants? Here’s what business owners say.
Of all the professions in the world of business, consultants get a bad rap. They go in, survey the scene and make their recommendations. Whether or not their advice turns into growth, the consultant still gets paid. Some charge thousands a day, others take equity for good measure. Some are great and some need work.
The rise of artificial intelligence tools in business throughout 2023 and beyond has started a debate as to which roles will remain and which will be replaced. Coaches might be safe but lawyers might not. Admin assistants, call center workers, each job function requires a rethink. In this series of assessments by entrepreneurs, AI experts and consultants, consultants themselves are under scrutiny. Here’s what other professionals think will happen to these day rate strategists.
Can artificial intelligence replace consultants? The debate.
Yes, AI will replace consultants
“Most consultants aren’t actually that smart,” said Michael Greenberg of Modern Industrialists. “They’re just smarter than the average person.” But he reckons the average machine is much smarter. “Consultants generally do non-creative tasks based around systematic analysis, which is yet another thing machines are normally better at than humans.” Greenberg believes some consultants, “doing design or user experience, will survive,” but “the run of the mill accounting degree turned business advisor will not.”
Someone who has “replaced all of [her] consultants with ChatGPT already, and experienced faster growth,” is Isabella Bedoya, founder of MarketingPros.ai. However, she thinks because “most people don’t know how to use AI, savvy consultants need to leverage it to become even more powerful, effective and efficient for their clients” and stay ahead of their game. Heather Murray, director at Beesting Digital, thinks the inevitable replacement of consultants is down to quality. “There are so many poor quality consultants that rely rigidly on working their clients through set frameworks, regardless of the individual’s needs. AI could do that easily.” She agrees “the high quality consultants will prevail, but they’ll only stay competitive by arming themselves with AI.”
AI business consultant Damien Sebastian thinks it’s a matter of timing. “In the short to medium term, a lot of consultants will be put out of a job,” and he has a theory on why. “The demand for consultancy work is growing, but this growth is matched by how AI technology is speeding up common tasks such as writing reports and analysis,” an imbalance he thinks “will result in job losses, because fewer consultants are needed to do the same amount of work.” Similar to Murray, Sebastian believes, “high performing consultants will use AI tools as co-pilots, increasing their outputs exponentially, while big consulting companies will become infinitely more lean and profitable.”
Rob Da Costa, who helps agency owners make their agency less dependent on them, with 1-to-1 coaching and AskRobAnythingAI, believes, “AI-powered virtual assistants could handle many routine consulting tasks like gathering basic client information, explaining processes and options, providing recommendations based on parameters, and answering common questions,” a process he believes would replace many consultants while also being positive for their human counterpart. “This would allow human consultants to focus on higher-level strategic work and develop personal relationships,” along with their “depth of understanding, empathy, and the ability to read between the lines, understand the nuances of human emotion and behaviour, and offer tailored advice based on years of experience and intuition.”
Tim Glowa has worked in HR consulting, including partner level, at global HR, tax and accounting firms. Leading a human capital analytics solution, involving employee surveys, he believes, “the generation of questions, programming a survey, sending out email invitations, analyzing data, writing a report, can easily be replaced with AI,” as well as communication and some tax functions. Other areas, including strategy, pricing and auditing, he thinks will follow suit, but not yet, because they “still require thought and experience and AI isn’t at that level.” Glowa thinks AI can level the playing field between large and small consultancy firms. “We were worried about boutique specialized consultancies that can do something of equal quality faster and cheaper,” by leveraging AI. “At least I hope they can!” he added.
No, AI will not replace consultants
“Good consultants bring the human experience and context-driven guidance that AIs aren’t able to do,” said Heather Flanagan of Spherical Cow Consulting. She believes, “AI is a fantastic value-add, as it can help a consultant scale engagements and lead generation.” As a consultant herself, she thinks “it’s a value add more to us than to what we offer to our clients.” Joffrey Berti, rapid transformational coach and strategy consultant, also believes human experience matters too much to be replaced by robots. “AI lacks the human consultant’s ability to understand nuanced business contexts and the complex dynamics of organizational culture. Human consultants bring a level of creativity and strategic insight informed by years of experience and personal judgment that AI cannot replicate yet especially on complex multidimensional projects.”
For Chantal Swainston, founder of The Heard, situational experience is just too important. “The best consultants rely on their experiences to give the best advice,” she said. “Having access to someone who has been in your very specific situation before, managed the process and the results, and can spot the less obvious pitfalls is invaluable.” She said she can see AI “providing a significant amount of assistance, and accelerating people the first few steps before speaking to a consultant, but replacing them completely feels unlikely to me.”
Founder of Mashman Venture Isaac Mashman also believes the demand won’t be there. “Sure, AI can give general answers and be trained on a case-by-case basis, but to imagine people will adopt at scale is unlikely. Humans present a degree of connection AI does not have,” he added.
Senior strategist Jim Perry thinks predictability and emotional intelligence play a part, saying AI is “less effective in factoring the unpredictable emotional and cultural factors that often shape successful strategy development and implementation.” Chief financial officer Fotis Chrysochos believes clients will continue to request consultants until AI reaches human levels of “compassion, empathy and behavioral understanding.”
Amy Lester, VA and VA mentor said that “even though AI can take some of the menial, repetitive work away, there will always be a requirement for human involvement to add humanity or personality.” David Rich, CEO, R Squared Group is questioning the ability of AI all together, saying that “half of what good consultants do is diagnose the problem by asking the right questions in the right order to the right audience,” a task that he said “would require very strong prompt engineering from the user of AI to determine all the factors.”
HYPPA Coach founder and ADHD consultant Mark Cann, who has built an AI focus coach, believes “a human consultant is more likely than an AI (which may lack previous context) to call you out on your BS to help you make progress.” He can, however, see the benefit of combining AI with consultants, in that “the client gets more attention on their high priority problems, and wastes less money on collection and analysis of data, which a consultant can use AI to do.”
“AI isn’t here to replace us, but to work alongside us. It can’t think on its own, it requires the human!” said coach and consultant Cadi Jordan, “shouting from the rooftops!” AI creator Anna Poplevina concurs, believing “consultants will adapt by incorporating AI into their work to quickly analyze data for better, personalized advice,” meaning “this change won’t replace them but will make their expertise more valuable as they navigate and apply AI insights to meet clients’ needs.”
Cofounder and CEO of Lately AI, Kate Bradley Chernis is adamant that AI will not replace consultants and has a strong case for why. “Sentient machine learning does not exist,” she said. “Robots cannot think for themselves. The symbiosis of AI needing humans and humans needing AI is a movie we’ve all seen before.”
AI creator Lucas Pimentel added a new dimension to the debate, explaining that “the expectations from clients will be higher,” which he said will mean “consultants who don’t perform well will be replaced by AI, and those who can use AI to enhance their impact will be in more demand than they can even fathom.” Finally, Chernis’ closing words of wisdom ring true for all knowledge workers. “When we fight it, we stall. When we embrace it, we soar.”
What’s the midground? AI-powered consultants.
While it’s romantic to think that empathy, human connection and genuine interest are required for a consulting relationship to work, the only thing that matters is the results. Your dog can give you empathy and your friends can give you human connection. Your consultant needs to grow your business.
Even if AI won’t replace consultants in their entirety, it will eliminate the need for them to do admin and data processing. They can move their effort to the work only they can do, benefitting their clients in the process, who can now access high level human insights without superfluous entries on the bill.
If entrepreneurs can train an AI model to gather information, dig deep, push back, spot patterns, give advice and hold them accountable, would they prefer to engage with a human or a robot at a fraction of the cost? Great consultants versus great AI tools is a debate to be had when they reach a level of proficiency that is unequivocally better. Until then, consultants race their clients to make the best use of AI, each proving that their side of the argument will ultimately be correct.
