Accenture’s Woes Don’t Mean Consulting Is Dead, But Change Is Inevitable and Good for Clients

Kevin O'Marah

June 26, 2026 • 5 min read

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Arecent opinion piece in the UK’s Telegraph cites Accenture’s brutal 24% share price decline last week as proof that the consulting “sham” is collapsing.  

So, what? 

At first blush, this view seems plausible, and I have personally heard several C-level executives quip that they don’t see much difference between consultants and frontier LLMs for the typical business strategy question. And yet, it is a rare Fortune 500 company that is devoid of at least some engagement with BCG, Bain, or McKinsey, which shows that most C-level leaders still see value in consultants.  

The choices, both of clients and job seekers, say something about consulting’s resilient value proposition: prestigious brand names make a difference. 

Branded Due Diligence  

Many of those C-level leaders who’ve confided that LLMs are as effective as McKinsey still pay the big bills because boards demand that stamp of approval. Plus, executives appreciate the credibility of a name like BCG when they’re trying to change minds across the extended leadership team. Branded due diligence is evidently worth more than generic due diligence when working to transform a business. 

Brand also matters to young talent. Among LinkedIn’s 2025 ten best business schools, the top three employers are Deloitte, Amazon, and McKinsey. These high-flying MBAs have choices, and two of their top three are consulting firms. Presumably, they did their homework before accepting these jobs, and found good pay, work experience, and long-term career prospects (24 of America’s 500 most valuable firms are run by former McKinsey consultants, seven by Bain grads, five by BCG alums).  

The choices, both of clients and job seekers, say something about consulting’s resilient value proposition: prestigious brand names make a difference. 

“There is No Compression Algorithm for Experience” 

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy dropped this gem in a CNBC interview during AWS’s blistering growth phase in 2017. His point is even more valid in the age of AI. Early research says that while genAI is ravaging entry-level white-collar work, it is a boon for experienced professionals who know what to ask an LLM and how to interpret its answers.   

Jassy’s comment went further: “You can’t learn certain lessons without going through the curve,” meaning the battle scars and muscle memory earned by living through the work are irreplaceable. For senior leaders at firms like Accenture, McKinsey, Deloitte, and Bain, this reality includes having seen, many times, up close, and in the boardroom, how executive teams behave when dealing with strategic change.  

As a client, you will have seen at most a handful of such moments, and often at the same company over a twenty-year career. Change management may sound like a squishy workstream for the typical business or technology transformation project, but it can be a back breaker. The best consultants know this and have toolkits built on lessons learned in previous projects. 

Using Consultants in the AI Age 

Zero100 has a model for predicting the future of automation-adjusted work in supply chain management based on detailed task breakdowns. We adapted this model for consulting to show how things might change by 2030. The big takeaway is that the hierarchical model of analysts/manager/partner billing insane hours on the client’s site cannot survive. This shift affects all advisory firms, including specialist firms like Zero100. In the AI era, the adaptation that will win uses machines for data gathering and analysis while concentrating human effort on judgment, contextualization, and insight. 

When working with consultants, good results going forward will increasingly depend on exposing your people to the kind of high-EQ work that AI can’t do. Interviewing, for instance, develops communication skills and builds trust. Workshop facilitation sharpens listening ability and office-politics awareness. Presenting and defending ideas stretches logic and reasoning. 

For CSCOs and COOs, this is a golden opportunity to force skill transfer from consultants to your teams. Equip your folks with internally secure LLM tools so they can stay ahead of the desk research. Most will thrive, and their engagement will sharpen your ability to hold the consultant’s lead partners accountable for real results. 

Getting to the “So, What?” 

Accenture’s public struggles have a silver lining for clients: you no longer need to pay premium rates for brand names, or Excel and PowerPoint grunt work – AI handles it for free, or at least very cheaply. Meanwhile, your team can spend more learning cycles on how to execute those strategies in practice. 

The future of consulting isn’t about buying hours; it’s about buying the high-leverage judgment and peer-validated context that no prompt can synthesize. 

That’s the “so, what?”