Summary: Bloomberg’s Project Argentum story shows ex-consultants training AI models to replicate entry-level consulting work. It’s not the end of consulting – but it marks the beginning of a structural rebuild, where judgment replaces leverage and firms rethink how learning, pricing, and delivery work.
The Shift Has Started
Around 150 ex-McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants are now training AI models like Gemini to do the tasks that once filled an analyst’s first few years — building slides, structuring logic, cleaning data, and running analyses.
The project, code-named Argentum, pays $110 an hour for up to 19 hours a week. On paper, it’s simple data labelling. In practice, it’s symbolic: the industry’s foundational work is being codified into algorithms.
The people who used to train analysts are now training their replacements.
The Apprenticeship Model Is Breaking
Consulting has always run on leverage. Juniors did the heavy lifting, learned by doing, and became the next generation of partners.
That base layer is now where automation bites first.
When entry-level work disappears, firms lose the training ground that builds structured thinking, communication, and commercial judgment. The question isn’t whether AI can do the work — it’s what replaces the system that taught people how to think.
The Pyramid Is Flipping
As AI removes repetitive work, the industry is tilting from bottom-up to top-down.
Smaller, senior-led pods will deliver faster, combining strategy insight with automated analysis.
The new model is not about scale. It’s about precision — teams that combine experience, data, and technology to deliver outcomes directly, without layers of translation.
AI Work Is Mostly Change, Not Tech
Partners leading AI programmes say the same thing: code is only 20% of the effort.
The real work is embedding it — changing processes, retraining teams, aligning incentives, and managing adoption.
This is where consultants still matter. The value is not in building tools but in making them work at enterprise scale.
Pricing Models Are Evolving
As AI takes over execution, firms are rethinking pricing.
Outcome-based models are replacing hourly billing — fixed fees with upside linked to real business impact.
It’s a shift from selling time to sharing risk. Consulting becomes a partnership, not a service.
Consulting Is Being Rewritten in Code
The next wave will come from ex-consultants turning judgment into software — creating AI-native platforms that capture how strategy, structure, and persuasion actually work.
These tools won’t replace consultants. They’ll amplify them.
Research, structuring, and delivery will become faster, leaner, and more secure.
Tagging Philippe Reynier, who’s building something impressive in this space.
Judgment Is Still the Edge
The irony is that the skills being automated were never the value.
Clients don’t buy slides — they buy clarity, confidence, and judgment.
AI can process information. It can’t persuade a board, reframe a problem, or lead a transformation under pressure.
Consulting isn’t dying.
It’s being rebuilt — with new economics, new infrastructure, and a new definition of leverage.
What I’m Hearing from Partners Leading AI Work
Across Tier-1 and Tier-2 firms, a consistent pattern is emerging:
- AI delivery is mostly change, not code – embedding, training, and adoption are the real bottlenecks.
- Clients are pushing for shared-risk pricing and measurable impact, not slide decks.
- The winning model is partnership: consultants orchestrate, vendors engineer.
- The next generation of leaders act as translators – bridging business, data, and delivery.
The Takeaway
Consulting isn’t being replaced, it’s being redefined. AI is stripping away the manual layers that once powered the apprenticeship model and forcing firms to rebuild around judgment, orchestration, and measurable impact.
The consulting firm of the future will look smaller, smarter, and faster – a network of senior-led pods, powered by AI, built on trust, and rewarded for impact.
This post comments on:
Bloomberg: Ex-McKinsey Consultants Are Training AI Models to Replace Them
30 October 2025
Authors: Omar El Chmouri and Suzanne Woolley
Ben Appleton is the founder of Strat-Bridge, a specialist executive search partner to the strategy consulting industry. He works with global consulting firms and senior leaders across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond — helping them build capability at the Partner and Director level.
