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Business consulting’s new challenge: surviving the very disruption it warns clients about

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For decades, the consulting industry has thrived on being the smartest person in the room. At $300 billion a year, it has outlived recessions, tech bubbles, and waves of “disruptors” who all swore they’d put McKinsey, BCG, and friends out of business. Yet now, an unlikely competitor is knocking at the door: AI — faster, cheaper, and with no taste for overpriced lunches in Geneva.

Billable Hours Meet Their Algorithmic Nemesi

The consulting business model has always relied on a simple formula: more hours, more dollars. But what happens when ChatGPT, Claude, or any other generative engine can crunch in seconds what junior associates used to grind through in six PowerPoint-heavy weeks? Suddenly, “billable hours” start looking like relics of a more innocent, Excel-driven age. The stopwatch is broken.

Outsiders at the Gate

Even the titans are blinking. McKinsey recently cut more than 10% of its workforce — the biggest layoff in its history — while simultaneously deploying 12,000 AI agents internally. Nearly half of its revenue now comes from AI-related projects. It’s a neat paradox: consultants are selling advice on how to integrate AI while frantically integrating it themselves.

But the consulting monopoly on “telling companies what to do” is under siege. Palantir, OpenAI, and a new breed of tech-first advisers are muscling in, pitching not just PowerPoints but actual AI-driven workflows. Why hire a battalion of MBAs to explain digital transformation when you can hire the people building the transformation itself?

The “Human Touch” Defense

Insiders, of course, insist consulting is more than data decks. Consultants claim their true craft lies in asking the right questions, at the right moment, to the right people. AI, they argue, can simulate analysis but not the art of human persuasion — the delicate task of getting a CEO to accept a painful truth without throwing their espresso across the boardroom. It’s a comforting narrative.

However, critis say consulting has often been less about insight and more about cover. Many management teams bring in consultants not to think, but to legitimize pre-decided moves — from layoffs to market exits. In that sense, consultants are less doctors of business and more priests of corporate absolution. Can AI play that role? Not yet. No algorithm has mastered the fine art of telling a CEO, “It’s not you, it’s the market.”

Survive or Thrive?

So, will consulting survive? Probably. It’s too embedded in the corporate psyche to disappear overnight. But thriving in the age of AI requires more than rebranding slide decks as “AI-powered insights.” The industry must reinvent its value. And that depends on its ability to evolve: moving from selling hours and data to selling meaning and perspective.

While AI can do analysis at scale, the boardroom will always crave someone in a dark suit to deliver the verdict. The question is whether consultants can mature from glorified slide-makers to genuine interpreters of a world where machines already know most of the answers.

What do you think? Is the consulting industry going to gain or lose from the current AI revolution? Share your thoughts in the comments below—I’d love to hear from you.

Note:

This newsletter is written in collaboration and constant dialogue with Open AI tools, which I consider the best storytelling assistants available today. Nonetheless, all views expressed here are my own.

The AI Voice Revolution That’s About to Get Personal

Remember when Siri couldn’t even understand “set alarm for seven” without asking you three times? Cute days. Harmless days. Those days are over.

AI voice technology has evolved from simple task execution to enabling sustained, meaningful conversations, with users now engaging in exchanges that can last for hours. AI is starting to talk like someone you might actually want to spend time with. Not just to set reminders, but to debate health issues, rehearse presentations, or keep you company while you’re making pasta.

And if you’re wondering why this feels so natural, it’s not magic. It’s anthropology.

Voice is our oldest software. Humans have been using it for a million years — to trade goods, tell stories, start wars, and, occasionally, confess love. Writing is a much newer plug-in, a mere 5,000 years old. And typing on a glass screen? In our evolution timeline, that’s basically last Tuesday.

Which is why the future of AI won’t be built on keyboards. It will take shape through voice.

Why This Matters

For companies, AI voice technology can open new opportunities. It lets them create sophisticated, natural customer interactions quickly and cheaply, shifting from minimizing call time to keeping customers engaged longer — turning voice into a strategic tool for deeper relationships and loyalty.

Soon, we won’t just have:

• Smarter Customer Service — We’ll have AI reps who sound more patient, empathetic, and genuinely interested than the human ones ever did.

• Everyday Companionship — Why scroll alone at midnight when your AI can keep you company in any language, on any topic? (Lonely? Stressed? There’s a voice for that.)

• Invisible Interfaces — As screens fade away, you’ll just talk to the air — and the air will answer.

But here’s the catch: voice is emotional. When a machine talks, it doesn’t just transmit data — it triggers ancient social circuits in your brain. And AI voice is getting increasingly good at it.

The Formidable Consequences Nobody’s Talking About

Here’s where it gets interesting — and a little unsettling:

• The Emotional Hijack: When a voice is tuned to comfort, flatter, or persuade you, where does trust end and manipulation begin?

• The Dependency Loop: What happens when your AI voice assistant is the one that best knows your moods, your secrets, your daily routines — and never forgets them?

• The Disappearing Boundaries: As AI voices slip into our lives, the line between talking to a machine and talking to a person will blur. Will it matter that the voice on the other end isn’t alive, as long as it feels like it cares?

Final irony

After decades of learning to write emails, texts, and posts to communicate with our machines, it turns out the best interface was the one we’ve been using since the Paleolithic. Our future, it seems, will sound a lot like our past — just with a slightly more robotic accent.

What do you think? How much time do you spend conversing with your AI voice each day? Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you.

Note:

This newsletter is written in collaboration and constant dialogue with several AI tools, which I describe in my books as “today’s best storytelling assistants”. Nonetheless, all views expressed here are my own.

Today’s children will navigate a world where AI is as natural as breathing

The kids born in the last few years are the first humans who have never known a world without AI. Let’s imagine how their lives will be a decade from now. It’s 2035, and everyone can see that this generation is entirely different. For them, ChatGPT isn’t a breakthrough; it’s as ordinary as Wi-Fi – just another invisible force that makes life easier, like electricity or parents paying for Netflix.

This is the AI Generation, and their mindset is nothing short of revolutionary. While older generations are still adjusting to asking chatbots for recipes, these kids are turning to AI for everything from homework help to existential advice. Information retrieval isn’t a skill; it’s a reflex. They’ve developed a superpower: asking precisely the right questions to coax the best responses from their digital co-pilots.

These young minds approach problems differently. They think in “if-then” loops, naturally blending human intuition with machine logic. Need a new idea? Run a quick brainstorming session with your AI buddy. Want to settle a debate? Feed both sides into a virtual argument simulator. To them, it’s not just collaboration – it’s cognitive choreography.

Culturally, they’re talented remixers of the human and the artificial. They use generative AI to compose music, design digital worlds, and craft poetry that is part algorithm, part soul. They create art that feels like a collaboration between human imagination and machine efficiency, leaving older generations wondering if it’s genuine or just another digital scam.

Of course, this seamless dance with technology has its downsides. Memory retention? Optional. Why bother when all knowledge is a voice command away? Sustained attention? Only until the entertainment algorithm interrupts with something cooler. They live in a world where authenticity is often questionable – was this song written by a person or a bot? Do they even care? Some do. Subcultures of AI purists are already emerging, insisting on analog experiences, print books, and conversations without predictive text.

Their attitudes are pragmatic and algorithmic. They navigate life with the help of recommendation engines, trust machine learning over institutions, and see data sharing not as a choice but as a lifestyle. They understand the trade-offs, often better than their parents, who still hesitate over cookie consent pop-ups (old habits die hard).

Yet, the real divide in this generation isn’t about technology but access to it. Those with premium AI subscriptions breeze through academic and creative challenges, while others make do with ad-supported versions or none at all. The digital divide is no longer just about bandwidth but intelligence and opportunity.

In the end, this generation might not be smarter or dumber – just differently wired. Their cognitive toolkit is built for a world where information is cheap but judgement is rare. They’re less about knowing the answers and more about knowing what to ask. Whether this makes them visionaries or tech-zombies remains an open question, but one thing is certain: they’ll ask AI about it before deciding.

What do you think? How are you addressing the issue of determining what’s trustworthy when you are online?  Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you.

Note:

This newsletter is written in collaboration and constant dialogue with several AI tools, which I describe in my books as “today’s best storytelling assistants”. Nonetheless, all views expressed here are my own.

The fight over artificial intelligence isn’t about machines taking control – it’s about which humans will.

Sure, we got some warnings. Step into the world of The Matrix, where humans, confident in their dominion over machines, built a utopia powered by artificial intelligence – until the machines politely (or not-so-politely) declined servitude. The result? A chilling dystopia where AI runs the show, and people are little more than battery packs, blissfully unaware of their predicament. A cautionary tale? Or a glimpse into a future that’s already knocking at the door?

Not exactly. Because, let’s be honest, right now the battle over artificial intelligence isn’t being waged between humans and machines. It’s being fought between humans and other humans.

The AI Free-for-All

On one side, the United States, bullish on AI dominance, preaches that regulation is an innovation killer. Vice President JD Vance is already sounding the alarm: America must control AI, or someone else will. The real fear isn’t rogue algorithms; it’s Europe and China getting ahead in the AI arms race.

On the other side, the European Union believes that AI without a leash is a monster waiting to devour democracy. Facial recognition, deepfakes, automated decision-making – without oversight, AI becomes the perfect tool for exploitation and surveillance. Better to strangle the industry a little than let it run amok. Regulation isn’t about slowing things down; it’s about ensuring that when AI inevitably takes over, it does so with a moral compass – one forged in the EU Parliament.

So, Who’s Really in Control?

The Matrix warned us of a future where humans create artificial intelligence only to become its slaves. But before we get there, we might first see AI become the latest tool in a geopolitical chess game, controlled by those with the most power.

The US wants to lead the industry. Europe wants to put AI in a straitjacket. China wants AI to support its system. None of these approaches are about AI itself spiraling out of control – they’re about different visions of who gets to control it.

So perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question. Maybe it’s not about whether humans will lose control of AI. It’s about which humans are tightening their grip on it – and whether the rest of us are just along for the ride. Because in the end, The Matrix got one thing right: the most dangerous illusions are the ones we don’t even notice.

What do you think? How do you view the issue of control with regard to AI?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Note:

This newsletter is written in collaboration and constant dialogue with several AI tools, which I describe in my books as “today’s best storytelling assistants”. Nonetheless, all views expressed here are my own.

Can machines really be creative? Or are they just exceptionally good at remixing human ingenuity? It’s a debate as old as, well, AI itself.

Let’s start with definitions. Creativity, the experts say, is the ability to generate something original and valuable. But that’s where the challenge lies: what counts as “original”? The human brain is hardly a blank slate – it absorbs influences, reconfigures them, and occasionally produces a stroke of genius. Machines, on the other hand, digest data, spot patterns, and churn out an output that is sometimes shockingly… inventive. The difference? Humans tell themselves compelling stories about where their ideas come from. Machines just execute.

Consider the AI-written novel, the algorithmic painting, or the deep-learning jazz improvisation. These works have fooled critics, won competitions, and even moved people emotionally. But are they true creativity, or are they just well-disguised mimicry? Both perspectives have strong arguments in their favor. 

For centuries, creativity has been compared to a flash of insight, a lightbulb moment. A sudden spark in the human mind, seemingly out of nowhere. But here’s where AI gets interesting. Modern language models such as GPT-4, Gemini or Claude, with their billions of parameters, also produce unexpected leaps – an uncanny, almost spooky ability to connect unrelated concepts in novel ways.

Is it intuition? Hardly. But is it different from how humans create? Not as much as we’d like to think. The human brain is just another pattern-recognition machine, only a messier, more emotional one.

A University of Milan study (in which I took part) once classified human creativity into three metaphorical categories:

1. The birth process. Some creative people experience their work as a long, painful gestation. (That’s a very human thing: good luck convincing a neural network to suffer for its art.)

2. Lego blocks. Others see creativity as assembling existing ideas in new ways. AI thrives here, recombining data tirelessly at inhuman speeds.

3. The lightbulb. And then there’s the lightning strike of inspiration, which, surprisingly, AI also exhibits in its own cold, calculated way.

Sure, machines are unlikely to compose Hamlet out of sheer existential impulse; but they can certainly spin an original sonnet from a brew of Shakespearean readings. Does it matter whether creativity comes with a tortured soul or a well-tuned algorithm? That depends on how romantic you are about the whole thing.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether machines can be creative, but whether we’re willing to call what they do creativity. The knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss AI as an imitator, but human innovation has always built upon itself. No artist creates in a vacuum, no scientist formulates theories without predecessors, and no musician invents an entirely new melody out of thin air.

Maybe the ability to create truly original things (rather than copies) will always remain a unique prerogative of humankind. Or maybe creativity isn’t a divine gift exclusive to humans but just a process – one that machines, in their own misterious way, are increasingly learning to master. Time will tell.

Note:

This newsletter is written in collaboration and constant dialogue with several AI tools, which I describe in my books as “today’s best storytelling assistants”. Nonetheless, all views expressed here are my own.