Another reason companies hire consultants is to cover their *&^. As the old saying goes, \u201cNobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey\u201d; even if the project goes poorly, the CEO can blame the consultant instead of management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s becoming much more difficult for consulting firms to stick with their old tactics, and their old business model. The industry is being disrupted by two powerful forces. The first is the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on consulting for the federal government. According to the General Services Administration, the top 10 contractors alone were set to be paid $65 billion by the government in 2025\u2014and the administration is adamant that that number be substantially reduced<\/a>. It is voiding contracts that it does not believe are \u201cmission critical.\u201d And it is insisting that government consultants find significant savings\u2014or else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a pointed letter<\/a>\u00a0to procurement officials throughout the government, acting GSA head Stephen Ehikian, complaining about the amount the government was spending on consultants, wrote: \u201cThis needs to, and must, change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second factor is the arrival of artificial intelligence as a dominant force in American business. Although the big consulting firms are hoping to make money providing AI services to clients, the clients have figured out that AI can often provide an analysis in 10 minutes that used to take a team of junior consultants weeks or months to do. \u201cIt used to take two weeks to do a SWOT analysis with all the people engaged in doing research,\u201d said Soren Kaplan, an innovation expert who has predicted for years that AI would upend the consulting business. (\u201cSWOT\u201d stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.) \u201cNow it takes two minutes with AI. It is going to change the economics in a huge way, making everything cheaper and faster. And this is going to come into play in consulting in a huge way.\u201d Ten minutes of work versus two weeks means a lot less money for the consultants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> The Consulting Crash Is Coming, argues Joe Nocera (@opinion_joe<\/a>) in @TheFP<\/a>
"Bloated, overpaid, and outpaced by AI\u2014big firms confront a future they can\u2019t outsource."https:\/\/t.co\/NTrGqpgGBI<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/j4KNBWR3TK<\/a><\/p>— Stephen Landry (@landryst) July 11, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>