The Weaponization of the AI-First Consultant - Green Hornet Style
Everyone’s shouting that AI will either “replace” us or “empower” us. That kind of thinking shows a lack of original thought. The issue isn’t whether AI is coming for boutique consultants, because it is. The real issue is that many boutique consultants see AI as just a tool. They don't view it as a partner in transformation.
Clients have realized that ChatGPT can handle 80% of the work that consultants used to charge $15K for. And when it comes to getting help fast and free, they would rather do it themselves. It's easier and faster to put a prompt into AI than to send you an email.
Microsoft’s recent Work Trend Index showed what most consultants are still denying.
Generative AI is taking on full work tasks across many industries and showing real success. That’s not a prediction. This is happening now. Your clients draft go-to-market plans with a single prompt. They generate SWOT analyses, persona decks, and training outlines in seconds.
Microsoft analyzed 200,000 U.S.-based Copilot chats. Not surprisingly, people turned to the AI for several reasons. They used it to collect information, create content, clarify topics, and offer or seek advice
Sound familiar? That’s literally the consulting value chain.
These are the tasks AI completes reliably, at a high quality, and across industries:
- Writing and editing client deliverables
- Researching market trends or healthcare data
- Preparing training and instructional content
- Answering technical questions or policy details
- Recommending tools, services, and workflows
- Translating info across languages and cultures
These are all things boutique consultants currently charge premium retainers to do. And it doesn’t stop there. AI is already great at information-rich coaching. It can summarize frameworks, suggest questions, create scripts, and generate behavioral models.
Boutique consultants are not on the immediate hit list, yet.
Microsoft developed a new metric that measures which jobs AI is already damn good at doing. Here are the knowledge experts who are at risk right now:
- Interpreters & Translators
- Writers, Editors, and Proofreaders
- Sales Reps & Customer Service
- Political Scientists & Historians
- Technical Writers & Content Creators
- PR Specialists & Marketing Advisors
That’s basically my entire career life on the chopping block.
Luckily, pivoting is my middle name. I pivoted from journalism to publishing, winning awards for electronic publishing innovation. I led global translation at the World Bank. I also worked as a consultant for the FBI. I had security clearance in anti-terrorism. I know a few things consultants ought to know about pivoting and repositioning.
I’ll be damned if I stop here.
It’s time to pivot again, y’all. It starts with recognizing that AI is more than a tool for boutique consultants. It’s our Kato in The Green Hornet who turns a lone vigilante into a high-functioning shadow operation. He is faster, sharper, and stronger than any goon in the room. The Hornet leads the mission. He sets the vision, connects with others, and picks up on unasked questions. He also understands the context.
Kato doesn't do that. Neither does AI.
- It doesn’t automatically challenge a user when they state a problem as a solution.
- It doesn’t know when your client is bullshitting themselves.
- It doesn’t feel when the room goes dead.
- It can’t see power games playing out between a founder and their COO.
- It can’t track identity conflict, trauma reactivation, ego spirals, or legacy sabotage.
- It won’t call out avoidance, projection, or people-pleasing that are hurting the business.
Consultants should team up with AI, just as the Green Hornet teams up with Kato. They stay as the face, the strategist, and the closer. AI handles execution, speed, and scale, so you become unstoppable. These hidden mechanics drive transformation. This is where AI-First consultants earn real money. Not from insights. From intervention.
So What Now?
Clients pay consultants to challenge the status quo. AI-first consultants transform a client and their organization with AI. They won’t blow smoke. They won’t coddle. And they sure as hell won’t pretend something works when it doesn’t.
They fill seven gaps:
- Real Transformation
- Asking better questions
- Managing Emotional and Political Terrain
- Building Operational Courage
- Contextual Judgment
- Designing Self-Sustaining Systems
- Making the Invisible Visible
AI won’t make meaning. You will. The future will be a hybrid model. Consultants create custom GPTs and agents for almost any task they used to bill for. They spend much of their time supporting clients and their teams through transformations.
A typical AI-First consulting scenario will likely look like this:
You enter your client’s boardroom sharp, informed, and three steps ahead. Not because you stayed up until midnight preparing, but because your AI Kato did the hard work. It scanned their ops data. It summarized last week’s emotional flashpoints. It also flagged the unspoken tension between leadership roles. While the CEO mentions “hiring problems,” you focus on the real issue: a power struggle that’s delaying decisions. That’s your zone, making the invisible visible. You coach in real time. Meanwhile, your AI writes the summary, updates the plan, and activates your custom GPT. This helps their managers practice tough conversations after you’re gone. You're no longer trading hours for impact. You’re embedding transformation at scale.
You don’t need to fear AI. You need to scale with it.
Let’s build the next version of your business. Send me a note and I'll be happy to brainstorm AI-First Strategies with you. Get on my calendar here.
