There was a time when every consulting insight came with a 50-slide appendix, a perfectly color-coded Gantt chart, and a watermark declaring Confidential – For Client Use Only. Competence was measured in slide count, and PowerPoint was the industry’s native language.
Back then, consultants spoke in frameworks, clients nodded in agreement, and everyone left the room feeling slightly smarter, even if nothing had actually changed.
Fast-forward.
Today, your client has already skimmed six think pieces, prompted ChatGPT for “five growth strategies for mid-market companies,” and run their own AI summary before you’ve even joined the Teams meeting.
The information gap consultants once filled? Gone. Everyone’s swimming in insights, dashboards, and data, most of it instantly available, endlessly duplicated, and practically free.
So what’s left for consulting to deliver when information’s no longer the differentiator?
From Frameworks to Frame-Shifting
The consultant’s edge was once information. Now it’s interpretation.
It used to be said that great consultants didn’t have the right answers; they had the right questions. That idea defined the industry for years. But today, everyone’s got access to the same playbook of “right questions.”
What separates great consultants now isn’t inquiry. It’s judgment. Knowing which questions matter, which assumptions to challenge, and when it’s time to stop diagnosing and start deciding. The best consultants know how to create clarity without oversimplifying, how to read both the spreadsheet and the room, and how to help clients turn insight into action that actually holds up in the real world.
Because when everyone’s got access to the same data, the difference between good and great isn’t who asks the cleverest question. It’s knowing when to say, this is the way forward.
when everyone’s got access to the same data, the difference between good and great isn’t who asks the cleverest question. It’s knowing when to say, this is the way forward."
The Human Advantage
The consultants who thrive today share a few understated superpowers: judgment, empathy, and synthesis.
- Judgment is knowing which insights actually matter and having the discipline to leave the rest behind.
- Empathy is understanding that behind every “organizational challenge” are people, priorities, and sometimes fear.
- Synthesis is the ability to turn a hundred competing ideas into one coherent path forward.
What sets great consultants apart isn’t how much they know, but how well they balance all three: thinking sharply, listening deeply, and bringing clarity to the chaos.
The New Definition of Value
AI can now draft a deck faster than most analysts can find the PNG version of the client’s logo. It can summarize reports, identify trends, and even generate “executive-ready takeaways.”
What it can’t do, at least not yet, is read the dynamics in a room or recognize when confidence is really uncertainty in disguise. It doesn’t know that the hardest part of execution is rarely strategy. It’s trust.
That’s where consulting still matters. Maybe more so. It’s not just a delivery system for answers but a practice of perspective, helping people see what they couldn’t see alone.
The job shifted from providing certainty to creating clarity. From explaining the future to helping clients face it. In a world overflowing with information, what still matters is discernment.
[consulting is] not just a delivery system for answers but a practice of perspective, helping people see what they couldn’t see alone."
What Endures…
Maybe that’s what consulting’s been all along: not the art of answers, but the craft of meaning. The ability to walk into a room full of noise and leave it a little quieter, more focused, and more human.
The slides, the frameworks, and the buzzwords will come and go. What endures is discernment, the rare skill of seeing what really matters when everything else is competing for attention.
And in a world that moves faster than anyone can summarize, that’s the kind of expertise that rises to the forefront.
You can see this in action at our upcoming Consulting Industry Meet-Ups, where mid-career professionals and leaders will share how they’re rethinking what expertise, value, and connection look like in a world shaped by change.
