The Death of Information: The End of Knowing Is Here

Information is dead. Not dying. Dead. AI now writes faster, analyzes cleaner, and finds patterns that used to take consultants days or weeks. The slide deck you once sold as a deliverable for your $25,000 discovery? A prompt can generate it in 25 seconds.

AI doesn’t just speed up what humans did; it changes what counts as work. It writes faster than any copywriter, builds decks in seconds, and analyzes data without fatigue or bias. It makes “knowing” a commodity.

That means your old selling point, knowing more than your client, is gone. Consultants once sold access to information. You gathered insights from interviews, audits, or benchmarks. Then you packaged them as frameworks and slides that looked exclusive. The client paid because they couldn’t see the whole picture without you.

Now, that picture is generated instantly. AI can produce a polished deck, complete with visual patterns, recommendations, and action plans, before your client even books a discovery call.

So what’s left?

The only defensible value now is human judgment under pressure and the courage to act when data can’t decide.

The End of Knowing

What happens when everyone knows everything? When every insight, model, and playbook sits one prompt away? The illusion of expertise collapses. And with it, the safety net and the comfort of “I know, you don’t” as a selling point.

Let’s call it what it is: the end of knowing. When knowledge becomes free, being smart stops being special. You’ve seen it. Clients no longer ask what to do; they ask who will make sure it gets done. They’re not paying for information. They’re paying for accountability, for someone who will carry risk when the machine only carries logic.

And the machine? It’s not your rival. It’s your mirror. AI is the fearless CFO of the modern firm. Pure analysis, zero emotion. It doesn’t care about sunk costs, personal bias, or saving face in a meeting. It just gives you the numbers, clean and cold. You’ve felt that chill, haven’t you? That moment when the data is perfect and still no one knows what to do next.

When I took over the Central & Eastern Division of Berlitz in 1997, I joined the company as the 10th managing director in 5 years. No one had ever been able to eliminate the million-dollar losses year after year. But I turned it profitable in less than 5 months.

His secret wasn’t a new strategy. It was a CFO who delivered numbers without emotions, laid out different scenarios, and ran a few more analyses I requested. He produced and delivered on all without emotional bias. And he was clear about what he expected from me: “You decide.”

Neutrality gave me clarity. Judgment gave me courage.

That’s the new model: AI strips away emotions, and humans make the call.

That’s the gap we fill. The human gap.

Because while AI processes logic, it can’t weigh meaning. It can’t see the politics in a boardroom, the hesitation in a client’s tone, or the fatigue in a founder’s eyes. It can’t decide when to wait. That’s judgment. That’s us.

So the direction isn’t away from expertise. It’s toward embodied leadership of the kind that reads a room rather than a spreadsheet. The consultant who leads now doesn’t compete with AI. They direct it. They use its precision to make human calls that move money and protect time.

AI measures effect but never feels consequence. It knows what happened, not what it meant. It can tell you revenue dropped 12%, but it can’t tell you that the founder’s trust cracked or the team’s belief eroded. It can’t weigh loyalty, fatigue, or momentum.

That gap is where leadership lives.

Consequence is emotional math about what people risk, lose, and hold onto when the data says nothing. Numbers are neutral. Humans aren’t. We assign weight. We decide what a 1% swing is worth and who pays for it.

That’s why leadership still matters. Machines handle information. People handle impact. The work now is to pair both cold analysis with lived consequence. That’s how good firms stay human in an algorithmic world.

One of the clients we had back then was a leading multinational engineering and technology company. They accounted for half a million dollars in revenue for us. Plus, they were a marquee name and a solid line on paper.

Except they we were losing $100,000 a year on that relationship. Years of small concessions, discounts, “strategic favors.” Death by a thousand compromises.

AI today would suggest: “Revenue steady. Margins thin. Optimize contract.”

The human judgment said, “This isn’t a pricing issue. It’s a fear issue.” So we told the client, “Our terms have to change or we walk.”

They walked. Six months later, they came back. Paid more. That’s courage. That’s what AI can’t replicate: values under pressure, decisions with consequences.

AI optimizes what exists. Humans protect what matters. That’s the real job now.

The Rise of The Original Intelligence Operator

The consultant of the future is an Original Intelligence Operator. They don't compete with AI. They collaborate with it. The machine handles fearless analysis. You bring judgment, empathy, and the nerve to act when the math says maybe.

Because clients don’t stall from a lack of information, they stall from fear. Fear of failure. Fear of politics. Fear of losing control. Fear turns logic into paralysis. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not being worthy.

Your job is to manage that resistance. To turn static knowledge into forward motion. You build systems that make courage repeatable. You set rules that turn hesitation into habit. You don’t just tell clients what the data means; you help them move through what it threatens.

That’s why the human advantage isn’t information anymore. It’s behavioral management under pressure. The best consultants now are not data providers. They’re consequence managers. They read fear in the room and pair it with the right signal from the machine.

You earn your fee not for knowing, but for guiding, not for what you can analyze, but for asking better questions.

The Galway Lesson

I experienced that the hard way when I lived in Galway, Ireland.

One morning, I woke up miserable. Stomach cramps, fever, muscle aches, headaches, and I threw up a few times. When I called the doctor's office, they said they were full that day, but if I were willing to wait a bit longer than usual, they'd squeeze me in.

At 5:45 PM, I finally saw the doctor after sitting in the waiting room for 1.5 hours. I sometimes assume that these seats in these waiting rooms have healing rays, and that's why they want you to sit so long. It cannot be explained with a disorganized front desk alone.

But on that day, it was exceptionally crowded.

When I walked in, the doctor didn’t even look up. No questions. Just handed a prescription with the words: “Hurry. Pharmacy closes in fifteen minutes.”

He was right about the medicine. But I stupidly exercised what doctors call patient non-compliance. I didn't take the medicine at first.

What I did not know until I turned on the news that night was that Galway's drinking water was contaminated. That's why the doctor's office was full. By the time I walked in, he must have seen some 50+ patients. He knew exactly what was wrong with me and wanted to make sure I got the proper remedy fast - and before the pharmacy closed.

But I left feeling dismissed and unconvinced. He did not ask one question that would give me trust in his judgment. His logic was correct, but the process broke trust.

Consultants do this every day. We get so good at pattern recognition that we stop asking questions. We jump to the answer because we’ve “seen this before.”

That’s how you lose the room.

People don’t buy solutions they don’t trust; they don’t trust them unless they feel diagnosed.

AI will always know faster. You have to know deeper.

Staying Human When AI Outsmarts You
AI will keep getting smarter. Faster. Cleaner.

Let it.

Here is a prompt that you can use to help you ask better consulting questions:

Test my consulting offer for original questions I can ask my audience. Treat sameness as risk. Your job is to resist groupthink and create what no AI or committee would produce. Research what the crowd would ask my clients, then write the smarter question that cuts deeper. If a prompt could generate it, raise the bar. If ten consultants were to ask it tomorrow, rewrite. If it doesn’t give a boutique firm a human advantage such as judgment, courage, or emotional precision, find one. Judge originality first, business fit second. Red-team yourself: name the most likely way these questions could fail in a real room with real people, and fix it. Then define the most valuable questions that prove consequence-aware leadership, something AI can’t fake. Here's my offer to produce these questions. Think deep: [Paste Your Offer].

Next step. Pick three questions. Run a 20-minute field test with one client or one live room this week. Capture answers verbatim, assign one safeguard or stop-doing decision, and schedule the proof task. Then we tighten the set and raise the bar again.

Because what keeps you irreplaceable isn’t speed, it’s consequence. It’s your ability to ask the better questions, to help your clients own a tough decision that might fail, and to lead people through uncertainty anyway.

Information may be dead. Judgment isn’t. And courage never will be.