The reframe: AI won't replace consultants. It'll replace the coordination overhead that makes consulting exhausting—so consultants can focus on what clients actually pay for.
Every week, consultants spend hours on work that doesn't require their expertise:
- Chasing status updates from team members
- Formatting reports that say the same thing differently
- Cross-referencing calendars to find meeting times
- Copying data between systems that should talk to each other
- Following up on follow-ups
This isn't consulting. It's coordination. And it's exhausting.
The Coordination Tax
TYPICAL ENGAGEMENT MANAGER'S TIMETODAY: ██████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 30% Client work ░░░░░░████████████████████████ 70% Coordination overhead
WITH AI AGENTS: ██████████████████████████░░░░ 70% Client work ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░████ 30% Agent oversight
The 70% overhead feels inevitable. "Of course running projects requires administration." But it's not the work—it's just how we've always done the work.
What AI Agents Actually Do
Navigate difficult client conversations. Decide whether to push back on scope creep. Build trust. Exercise judgment. Those require human intelligence, experience, and relationships.
Handle the coordination. The watching, flagging, routing, and following up that humans find draining but agents do effortlessly.
What This Means for Consultants
For them, agents are liberation.
Organization becomes table stakes. The new differentiator is insight.
The Firm-Level Impact
If coordination overhead drops by 50%, that capacity goes somewhere:
| Freed Capacity | Where It Goes |
|---|---|
| Less chasing | Higher utilization without burnout |
| Less admin | Better client outcomes from more attention |
| Less overhead | Growth without proportional headcount |
The firms that adopt AI agents early won't just be more efficient. They'll operate in ways traditional firms can't match.
The narrative around AI often jumps to replacement. The more useful frame is augmentation. AI agents make consultants more effective by removing work that didn't require a consultant in the first place. That's not a threat—it's an upgrade.