Very insightful. My one quick comment (also as a former partner at McKinsey and Bain :)) is that consultants are also paid for making trust incentive-compatible. Repeat business, references, and the firm’s reputation put future rents at risk—an implicit bond that AI does not yet replicate.
The issue of trust is studied in a recent paper by Piotr Dworczak and Alex Smolin, “Robust Trust” (2026): https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09490
AI is still very bad at persuading. It can't communicate in the modes you need to communicate effectively. Like it can't keep an email chain going over a few days with multiple parties, it can't participate effectively in a Zoom call with many people, it can't have a "quick chat" to answer questions, it can only really answer slowly at length, it can't stay focused on any issue over a timeframe of weeks or months.
Maybe this will change eventually, but for now, the humans have to do all this stuff.
Very insightful. My one quick comment (also as a former partner at McKinsey and Bain :)) is that consultants are also paid for making trust incentive-compatible. Repeat business, references, and the firm’s reputation put future rents at risk—an implicit bond that AI does not yet replicate.
The issue of trust is studied in a recent paper by Piotr Dworczak and Alex Smolin, “Robust Trust” (2026): https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09490
Thanks Kamierz, I agree. I will check it out.
AI is still very bad at persuading. It can't communicate in the modes you need to communicate effectively. Like it can't keep an email chain going over a few days with multiple parties, it can't participate effectively in a Zoom call with many people, it can't have a "quick chat" to answer questions, it can only really answer slowly at length, it can't stay focused on any issue over a timeframe of weeks or months.
Maybe this will change eventually, but for now, the humans have to do all this stuff.
Excellent post, tiny typo toward the end:
“What is missing is a cheap, portable data set that has not be strategically distorted”
Oops! Corrected thanks!