Consulting Is Dying … And Most Firms Still Don’t Know It

In 2020, during the pandemic, I wrote that consulting was showing the first signs of decline.
Back then, the cracks looked like:

• High overhead

• Long sales cycles

• Burnout from travel-heavy delivery

Now in 2025, AI has turned those cracks into earthquakes:

• McKinsey replaced 5,000 consultants with 12,000 AI agents.

• 25% of projects are outcome-based.

• Delivery is faster, cheaper — and clients prefer it.