The consulting pyramid didn’t decline gradually — AI collapsed its underlying economics in less than 24 months. The model survived for 70 years because three mechanisms held it together: leverage economics, the junior talent pipeline, and the apprenticeship system. AI breaks all three. What emerges now is not a re-inflated pyramid, but three incompatible firm architectures.
Each is a strategic bet. Each determines who you hire, the work you can win, and the economics you can sustain. No firm can mix them. Structure locks strategy.
Long-term pipeline decay. A smaller, less experienced junior cohort undermines future leadership formation.
2. The Hourglass
Thesis: AI hollow outs the middle. Junior apprenticeship and senior judgment survive; mid-tier generalists do not.
This is the MBB direction. McKinsey’s graduate hiring expansion is consistent with this architecture: maintain the bottom, fortify the top, compress the middle.
These assumptions produce mutually exclusive firm designs. You cannot run an Obelisk delivery engine with a Box talent mix. You cannot maintain a Box coststructure with an Hourglass career model. Firms that attempt hybridization end up structurally incoherent — neither cheap enough, nor expert enough, nor scalable enough.
Strategy follows structure. Structure follows AI’s economic logic. The pyramid cannot be rebuilt.
The Strategic Choice
Your architecture determines your competitive advantage:
Strengths: specialization, speed, outcome economics Weaknesses: limited program scale
The market will not converge to one model. Demand is segmenting. Enterprise clients will gravitate toward Obelisk and Hourglass firms; high-stakes or domain-deep problems will favor Box firms.
What’s disappearing is the traditional pyramid — the model where juniors did the work, managers reviewed, and partners sold. AI eliminates the economic rationale for the base, the operational need for the middle, and the production constraints that made leverage possible.
The Final Insight
A firm’s architecture is now its strategy. It dictates economics, culture, talent pipelines, client selection, and long-term survivability.
The consulting industry has split into three incompatible futures. The question is no longer whether the pyramid survives. It’s which replacement model a firm has the discipline — and courage — to choose.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
