AI and the Future of Professional Services

The future of professional services, and of consulting in particular, is being shaped by three shifts happening at once: AI is taking over a large share of the tasks professionals used to bill for, the business model built on selling those tasks by the hour is being repriced, and the firms themselves are having to change how they operate, hire and train. None of the three means the professions disappear. All three mean the firms that come out of this decade will look different from the ones that went into it.

This page is the index for that pillar. Each section names one shift, says what it means for the people who buy professional services and for the firms that sell them, and points to the briefings that treat it properly.

Shift one: the work itself

The first shift is in what professionals actually do all day. AI is very good at a specific band of professional work, research, summarising, first drafts, routine analysis and production, and much less reliable at the rest. The International Labour Organization’s 2025 index puts one in four workers worldwide in an occupation with some exposure to generative AI, but only 3.3% of global employment in the highest-exposure category. The effect is overwhelmingly on tasks, not on whole jobs.

What that means in professional firms, which roles are most exposed and why the pressure lands hardest on people starting their careers, is set out in the jobs AI will replace. What it does to the nature of expert work, as it moves from producing answers to framing questions, verifying output and taking decisions, is the subject of what happens to knowledge work.

Shift two: the business model

The second shift is commercial. Consulting firms have sold analysis by the hour and agencies have sold production by the retainer. AI makes both faster and cheaper, and clients have noticed. Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals report 2026 found 78% of corporate clients say AI-enabled quality improvements from their firms are very important or essential, while only 6% say most or all of their providers deliver them.

The consequence is a repricing. Volume loses its price; judgment, accountability and owned systems keep theirs. How that plays out across consulting and agencies, and the four business models emerging from it, is in the future of consulting and agencies. The deeper case for consulting specifically is in management consulting in the age of AI, and the straight answer to the question most consultants are privately asking is in will AI replace consultants.

For buyers, the same shift raises a practical question: how to tell a firm with real capability from one that has added “AI” to its brochure. That is covered in substance versus hype in AI consulting firms.

Shift three: the firm

The third shift is inside the firms. Law, accounting and advisory practices carry confidentiality duties, personal accountability and time-based pricing that ordinary businesses do not, so adopting AI safely takes more than buying tools. The frame for that is AI for professional services firms, with the practice-specific versions in AI for accountants and AI for law firms.

The operational side matters as much as the client-facing side. SPI Research’s 2026 benchmark of 509 professional services firms found average billable utilisation at 66.4%, the lowest in its 19-year history. Much of the difference between strong and average firms is in how they staff, track and bill work, which is the subject of professional services automation.

What this means if you buy professional services

• Expect the saving to reach you. If a firm uses AI to do in a day what used to take a week, hourly bills should reflect it.
• Ask how the work is checked. AI-assisted work can look polished and still be wrong. Know who reviews what reaches you.
• Ask what you keep. The most valuable outcome of an engagement is increasingly the system, the documented method and the data, not only the report.

What this means if you run a firm

• Decide what you are really selling and price that, rather than the hours it used to take.
• Make the system the firm’s: your instructions, client context, templates and review steps, documented and portable, owned by the firm rather than living in individual habits.
• Protect the pipeline of judgment. If the routine work that trained juniors disappears, give them the checking and the reasoning instead, or there will be no seniors in ten years.
• Measure what clients value: turnaround, quality and outcomes, not hours booked.

Where to start

For a firm, the useful first step is a map of the recurring client work, marked by which tasks AI already does well and which it does not. That map answers most of the questions in this pillar at once: where the time will come from, how pricing needs to change, and what juniors should be doing instead.

For a buyer, it is one conversation: ask each of your main advisers how AI has changed their work for you over the past year, and what it has changed in their fees.

If you run a firm and want to know what this means for yours, tell Daniel what your recurring client work looks like, what AI already does in it, and what you need the firm to do for you. Talk to Daniel.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the future of consulting?

A move from selling analysis by the hour to selling judgment, accountability and owned systems. AI now performs much of the research and first-draft work that filled consultants’ time, so that work is being repriced, while the decisions and responsibility clients rely on keep their value. Firms are likely to become smaller, more senior and more system-driven.

How will AI change professional services?

In three ways at once: it takes over many tasks professionals used to bill for, it forces the hourly business model to be repriced, and it changes how firms operate, hire and train. The ILO’s 2025 index found one in four workers globally in occupations with some generative AI exposure, mostly affecting tasks rather than whole jobs.

Will AI replace lawyers, accountants and consultants?

Not as professions. It is replacing much of the routine work within them, particularly at entry level, while increasing the importance of judgment, verification and accountability. The professions are changing shape rather than disappearing.

What do clients expect from professional firms using AI?

Better and faster work, with the benefit shared. Thomson Reuters’ 2026 survey found 78% of corporate clients consider AI-enabled quality improvements from their firms very important or essential, but only 6% say most or all of their providers deliver them.

How should professional services firms respond to AI?

Decide what they are really selling and price it on value rather than hours; build and own their AI systems as firm assets; redesign junior roles so people still learn judgment; and measure turnaround, quality and outcomes rather than hours booked.

What should buyers of professional services ask about AI?

How AI has changed the work done for them and whether fees reflect it, who checks AI-assisted work before it reaches them, and what they will own at the end of an engagement beyond the final report.