Notes on a consulting industry that may not recognize itself in five years—from someone who spent decades in strategy consulting before building the tools that are changing how it works. Looking back at those crucial client moments, asking what if GenAI had been there—and what it means for those still in the game

AI as Counterfeit

AI consulting pure players operate like luxury counterfeits.

For those watching from outside, they look like the real thing. For those who pretend to wear them, they work fine. For those who need the real product, they fall short. And for those who manufacture the genuine article, they’re an insult.

This isn’t dismissal. Counterfeits don’t simply steal from luxury brands — they reveal what those brands actually sell. The same exposure is happening to consulting.

I had lunch recently with an ex-BCG Partner. Last question before the check: “Stéphane, how much do you charge?” I read the disappointment in his eyes. At BCG, partners bill €12,000/day. They don’t staff projects below €1.5M.

That reaction — the implicit assumption that serious work requires serious fees — is precisely what AI tools are now testing. Not whether consultants are worth €12K/day. Whether clients were ever paying for what consultants thought they were selling.

The Counterfeit Parallel

My LinkedIn and Substack feeds are saturated with claims that you can replace McKinsey consultants with the right prompts. It’s gotten worse since NotebookLM can generate decent-looking slide decks. One consulting partner mentioned Xavier.ai to me — “The first AI management consultant; Have the power of a consulting firm at your fingertips.”

I’ve generated decks with these tools. I’ve run the “incredible” prompts.

The outputs look professional. But something is off.

LinkedIn prompts and AI consulting pure players operate like luxury counterfeits: they promise access to what was exclusive, copy the external markers — slide decks, frameworks, management language — and offer similar outputs at a fraction of the price.

Both overlook hidden value. A fake Hermès lacks the craftsmanship and durability. AI consulting lacks the reframing conversations, the sparring partnership, the change catalyst work, the judgment coaching.

When Counterfeits Help

Standard story: counterfeits steal revenue and damage brands. So LVMH says.

Except that people who buy Prada shoes at a flea market for 1/10 of the price know exactly what they’re doing. And only a minority of those who can afford the real thing would buy fake.

Working as a strategy consultant with luxury clients taught me that reality is messier. Counterfeits increase brand visibility. They serve customers the brand won’t serve at lower price points — customers who may trade up later. They justify authentication premiums and exclusive channels. Poor fake quality makes real products seem better by contrast.

But this works only if you’re a true luxury brand. For “premium” brands without genuine differentiation, counterfeits at a fraction of the price, with no significant experience gap, simply cannibalize sales.

The difference: strength of aspiration, size of experience gap, degree of exclusivity.

The question for consulting: where on that spectrum does each firm sit?

Neither Handbag nor Commodity

As an industry, consulting occupies uncomfortable middle ground.

It’s partly aspirational — the BCG partner’s €1.5M minimum signals exclusivity. McKinsey’s brand carries weight independent of analysis quality.

That €12K rate isn’t primarily a quality signal. It’s a commitment device. Clients paying seven figures need internal justification for the spend. The fee itself becomes evidence that the decision was taken seriously. If the strategy fails, no one gets fired for hiring BCG at full rate.

This is luxury mechanics exactly: price as signal, not as cost-recovery. The question AI forces is whether that signal still works when alternatives exist at a fraction of the price.

But consulting can’t be purely luxury. A handbag signals status whether or not you carry anything in it. A consulting engagement that delivers only confidence eventually fails. Clients need decisions that work.

This is where the analogy sharpens rather than breaks. Luxury counterfeits fail on durability and detail — flaws visible only through use or close inspection. AI consulting counterfeits fail similarly: adequate for low-stakes decisions, exposed at high-stakes moments.

The question isn’t whether AI analysis is “good enough” in the abstract. It’s whether clients can distinguish high-stakes from low-stakes decisions before making them. Often they can’t. This is what consultants actually provide: not superior analysis, but judgment about when analysis matters and when it doesn’t.

Consulting is hybrid: partly functional (analysis quality matters), partly symbolic (confidence and legitimacy matter), partly relational (access and judgment matter).

AI attacks from multiple directions. It commoditizes functional analysis. It exposes performative elements. When clients can generate frameworks themselves, the mystique fades.

This forces an uncomfortable question: what were clients actually buying?

What Clients Were Actually Buying

A strategy consultant would call it the ‘Positioning Collapse’. For decades, consulting firms held a productive ambiguity: claiming analytical superiority while delivering confidence, charging for rigor while providing political cover. Clients couldn’t fully disaggregate what they were buying, and firms had no incentive to clarify.

AI collapses that ambiguity. When clients can generate the analysis themselves, they discover which part of the engagement they actually needed. Some discover it was the analysis — and stop paying premium rates. Others discover it was never the analysis — and now want to pay only for what they value.

Either way, the bundled positioning breaks apart. Firms must choose.

AI provides adequate analysis for a growing category of decisions: market sizing, competitor mapping, trend synthesis, framework application, initial hypothesis generation. These were never where consulting delivered most differentiated value, but they comprised a significant portion of billable hours.

The 80% of analysis that was competent execution of known methods? AI handles that now at perhaps 5% of the cost. The 20% that required judgment - which hypotheses to pursue, which findings to elevate, which stakeholders needed which framing - remains human. Firms charging for 100% while delivering 20% of differentiated value face uncomfortable arithmetic.

That 20% - judgment, accountability, the willingness to stake reputation on a recommendation - is what scarcity now looks like. Humanness, it turns out, is the luxury good. Not warmth, but stake-holding.

Luxury, Commodity, or Dead

The Positioning Collapse leaves three paths.

Ultra-luxury: Fewer clients, extreme premiums, relationship and judgment as the explicit product. MBB firms have the brand equity to attempt this. It means smaller headcount, higher revenue per partner, and no pretense that you’re selling analytical superiority.

Commodity: AI handles 80% of analysis, Consultants provide context and oversight, when not internalized by Clients. Projects compress from €1.5M to €150K, but you run fifteen of them. Different operations, different economics — not failure, just a different business.

Stuck middle: Premium pricing, vague justifications, eroding differentiation. Most firms land here by default. They charge 5x the AI alternative and struggle to explain why beyond “experience” and “judgment” — words that sound thinner each time a client runs a prompt that produces adequate output.

The first two paths are viable. The third is not.

A platform at €5K/month doesn’t cannibalize €2M engagements — if the engagements were never primarily about analysis. The client using the platform gets frameworks, benchmarks, and synthesized data. What they don’t get: a partner telling the CEO which of three strategic options will destroy his legacy; a team navigating the politics between the CFO and COO; a third party the board can point to when the activist investor asks why this direction and not another.

The platform makes these gaps visible. Clients who only needed analysis discover they only needed analysis. Clients who needed judgment, cover, and political navigation discover the platform isn’t sufficient — and now understand why the full engagement costs what it does.

The Next Five Years

Within 18 months: At least one MBB firm launches a self-service platform priced under €10K/month, positioning it as “AI-augmented analysis” while preserving premium pricing for partner-led engagements. They’ll frame it as innovation. It’s actually triage, sorting clients by what they need before they discover it themselves.

Within 3 years: Headcount at major strategy firms contracts 20-30%, concentrated in analyst and associate ranks. Revenue per partner increases. The pyramid flattens not through elimination of hierarchy but through AI replacing the base.

Within 5 years: The “stuck middle” firms - too expensive for commodity, too weak for luxury - consolidate or collapse. The strategy consulting market bifurcates visibly into two distinct industries that happen to share a name.

The firms that navigate this will be those that chose early. The ones that waited for clarity will find that clarity came too late.

The lunch anecdote stays with me, not because of my own pricing, but because of what it revealed. A senior partner, decades of experience, still measuring value by day rate. Still assuming the old scale applies.

That assumption is now a liability. Firms clinging to it will spend the next three years explaining why they cost 20x more than AI alternatives, losing that argument repeatedly, and cutting rates until they’ve commoditized themselves.

The firms that thrive will be those that answer the question clearly before clients ask it: What exactly are we providing that AI cannot?

Confidence and accountability? Then own the luxury positioning: smaller client base, higher premiums, relationship as the product.

Speed and efficiency? Then own the commodity positioning: AI-augmented delivery, compressed timelines, volume over margin.

The middle path - premium pricing with vague “experience” justifications - is closing. The firms still on it have perhaps two years to choose. So do the consultants who work for them.

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