Moonshots for Consulting

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the futur/io executive program on moonshots for Europe. Inspired by the speeches, presentations, and discussions, I started pondering on what some of the scenarios of the future and exponential technologies we discussed would mean for the future of professional services. What could be moonshots for consulting?

The Function of Consulting

To put things in perspective, let us first look at what the consulting industry does.

According to CB Insights consultants offer:

• Information: The data and analyses that take the client's world, industry, and market position and make sense of it.
• Expertise: An experienced operator's perspective on a problem and the different ways that it can be solved.
• Insight: The rigorous, analytical application of expertise to data to come up with ideas that will help the company succeed.
• Execution: The roadmap to choosing and implementing the changes to be made. 

Consultants diagnose and solve problems, through a mix of consultants' judgement and the application of structured processes and frameworks (see "Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption" for example). They do this by relying on the functional or industry expertise of having solved the same or similar problems in similar contexts before.

We, consultants, exist because we have the experience with, expertise, or insight on a particular subject or problem the client does not have.

What If...

What if this expertise was abundant? Peter Diamandis predicted,

"A future of perfect knowledge: you can know anything you want, anytime, anywhere."

How would this be possible, you wonder? Consider the following exponential technologies and scenarios.

Humans knew it all

Today if you want to know something, you google it. Obviously, this works best for less complicated knowledge. On the other hand, you can learn pretty much everything online these days, although that requires investing time.

What if in the future your brain was connected and you could download any information and expertise you needed instantly. Yes, like in The Matrix!

Last week Elon Musk presented Neuralink, an implant that will connect your brain to a machine. Currently, the connection works from your mind to the device, but it won't take too long until it works in the other direction as well. Singularity University's Ray Kurzweil predicted the merging of humans and machines would happen by the late 2030s.

Advances in the application of Graphene, the world's thinnest material, in biomedicine will make smart implants even easier to use in the future.

Going a step further, Nicholas Negroponte predicted that one day, we will be able to learn a language by popping a pill. No more need for an implant then.

If you can access any information and expertise you need instantly, what's the value of hiring a consultant?

You might think, "for the insight and making sense of the knowledge" or "somebody must still compile the information and make the knowledge available". Well, think again. AI will do that.

AI knows it all

Artificial Intelligence will know it all in the not too distant future.

It's impossible for a human and even the most experienced league of consultants to analyze every strategic move ever taken by companies, taking into consideration every variable and assess the success of these moves. Well, AI can.

In healthcare, it is already happening. AI-powered solutions support doctors in diagnosis and decision making. AI will help us to overcome human limitations in organizations like it has started doing in healthcare. Martin Wezowski, SAP's Chief Designer & Futurist, calls this "Augmented Me" (He has a nice little demo in his presentation of what that could look like). Colleagues at Deloitte have made first steps towards such a vision in Financial Services, with what we call "Intelligence-enabled banking".

If AI diagnoses and solves problems in your company by providing all the insights you need to make decisions, what's the value of hiring a consultant?

Even if the "popping a pill" or "smart implant" scenario might be too crazy to you, you will have to admit; the AI knows it all scenario does sound very plausible.

Ultimately, as Daniel Kahneman said:

"The better AI becomes at making decisions, the less we'll need human judgement",

which leads us to the self-managing enterprise.

Companies could manage themselves

It's happening already: Coca-Cola's Freestyle fountain dispenser (the UX is a nightmare...but that's another story), can order new cartridges by itself, and they are probably being taken off the shelf and posted automatically as well. No more manually checking inventory levels and order processing.

Once AI knows it all, why shouldn't it run our companies? The idea of the decentralized autonomous organization (DOA) based on the concept of using smart contracts, paired with the robotics as mentioned above and AI, could be the basis for such a self-managing enterprise.

Google created an AI that built another AI, MIT designed an AI that can write code; Why shouldn't AI be capable of building and running companies?

Ultimately we will no longer need any expertise on how to run a company or solve strategic and organizational problems any more, as the company would take care of this itself, entirely independently.

How Might We...

So if these things happen, what does it mean for us consultants? What's the business of consulting in the future? How can consulting stay relevant? Here are a couple of moonshots for the consulting industry:

Make our People Smarter

Let's start by using these exponential technologies to make our consultants smarter and support them in data analysis and decision making. Imagine pairing technologies and AI capabilities with the experience and expertise available in a global consulting company with 100'000 consultants having worked on millions of projects. How powerful that would be!

Build Autonomous Systems

Autonomous systems go beyond simple automation of processes or tasks. Autonomous systems are capable of acting, learning, and continuously adapting on their own to optimize outcomes under changing conditions. These could be used for most administrative tasks.

Implementing such systems would enable consultants to focus on higher-level cognitive activities involving spotting complex casual relationships in data, creativity, imagination, innovation, and generating new ideas, based on and supported by the analyses and insights generated by the "make us smarter" solutions outlined above.

Augment our People

The next level would be to utilize exponential technologies to support consultants by amplifying and maximizing their higher-level cognitive abilities and skills.

In this TED talk Alpha's (Telefonica's Moonshot factory) Maurice Conti outlines how AI is already evolving from being passive and relying on our input to becoming generative. His examples are from the design and manufacturing world, but why not apply the same principles to strategies and organizational design?

Build the First AI Consultant

As these "generative servants" learn more and become more and more sophisticated, they can take over consulting tasks, progressing from somewhat routine types of analyses and decision making to devising advanced strategies and tactics.

Build an Autonomous Consulting Company

Before advising companies on how to become self-managed enterprises, why not start with building an autonomous consulting company first?

No idea how to? Good! Let's get to work.

PS: IMHO, the steps outlined above are a sound roadmap to guide any internal innovation / digital transformation efforts.

#exponential #technology #consulting #professionalservices #moonshots #innovation #futureproofyourorganization

Dr. Marc Sniukas is Director Innovation and Head of The Garage at Deloitte's Luxembourg office.

Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the author’s employer.