How AI Is Splitting Consulting Into Architects and Parrots

I’m frequently asked how AI will change consulting.

My initial response is optimistic. There’s a massive resurgence of high-skill roles: the Forward Deployed Engineer, the Automation Engineer, the Agentic Architect. There’s a tsunami of high-value work for people who can keep up.

But let me be blunt. The market—and especially our own organizations—is flooded with hype.

We are drowning in “slideware” and “marketecture” about “agentic this” and “conversational that.” It’s a charade. It’s immediately apparent when you see these decks that the people presenting them are not speaking from experience.

They haven’t learned by doing. They read something, and now they are parrots.

The Sound of the Old Model Dying

This hype is the sound of the old model dying. These “experts” are process-sellers in a panic, trying to use the old tools (PowerPoint) to describe a new world that makes them obsolete.

AI is rapidly commoditizing “noise”—the low-judgment, high-process work that built entire consulting empires. The manual data gathering, the basic analysis, the parroting of frameworks… this is all being automated to zero.

The Split Is Happening in Real Time

This is the “Coder vs. Architect” split, happening right now.

The “Coder” (the old model) executed a known process. They are the parrots. That job is evaporating.

The “Architect” (the new model) provides human judgment. This is the FDE. This is the person who builds and learns by doing. They are the only ones providing “signal.”

Where the Optimism Lives

The optimism is for the architects and the builders. The new demand for “signal” is massive.

For everyone else—for the parrots and the marketitects—the reality is much simpler.

I don’t know if this split will be as clean as I’m describing. Maybe there’s more room for hybrid roles than I’m giving credit for. But from where I’m sitting, the direction is clear: the value is shifting toward people who can actually build, not just present.