By Robert Streeter, CEO of TheAX

Let me be direct: 2026 will be an existential moment for the consulting industry.

This is not a projection, a trendline, or a talking point. It is a structural inevitability - one that has been building for more than a decade.  It hasn’t been created by AI, but AI has exposed and accelerated it.

Clients are demanding:

• continuous insight,

• measurable outcomes,

• speed and clarity over projects and PowerPoints,

• and human expertise wrapped in a modern delivery experience.

At the same time, clients are aggressively adopting AI, raising expectations about how consulting should work - and what it should cost.

These two forces collide in 2026.

And the uncomfortable truth is this: Most consultancies are not prepared.

Not because they don’t understand why change is happening — everyone agrees on that. But because the industry is still deeply confused about how to respond.

And here’s the strongest truth of all: The challenge for consultancies is not technological. It is structural.

The Problem Every Consultancy CEO Feels - but Few Articulate

Across every conversation with consulting leaders I hear the same tension:

“Yes, clients want outcomes not hours.”
“Yes, they want speed and continuous insight.”
“Yes, they still value human expertise, engagement, and partnership.”
“Yes, AI is transforming expectations.”

No disagreement. Everyone is aligned on why change is happening. Where things fall apart is the how.

The prevailing response across the industry has been… predictable:

• “Let’s train consultants to use ChatGPT better.”

• “Let’s develop internal AI guidelines.”

• “Let’s build a chatbot to help with proposals.”

• “Let’s use AI to write documents faster.”

• “Let’s automate some research and analysis.”

I want to be honest about this: That is not a consulting solution. It is a consultant solution.

It improves personal productivity.
It speeds up individuals.
It helps with tasks.

But it does nothing to change:

• the consulting operating model,

• the value chain,

• delivery consistency,

• the ability to scale IP,

• the commercial model,

• or the end-to-end client experience.

Chatbots are not the answer. They are a feature, not a strategy.

But further, increasing reliance of consultancies on using public LLM’s is making the problem worse. It leaks IP from a consultancy and weakens the consultancy value proposition. Leading to increasing pressures on margins but not solving the fundamental issue of making consultancy scalable - and creating more value for clients than they can get through ChatGPT use alone.

And if the industry continues to mistake “AI-enhanced consultants” for “AI-enabled consulting businesses,” then the 2026 inflection point will be unforgiving.

When I saw this Pattern, I did what strategists do: I mapped It

For the last couple of years, I have tried to step back from the noise and always ask a more fundamental question: What is actually changing in the consulting value chain - and what is inevitable?

So, I built a Wardley Map of the consulting industry from the 1950s to today. And the result was stunning in its clarity. It showed that consulting has always been evolving - slowly, steadily, structurally - toward:

• productisation,

• platformisation,

• automation,

• data-driven engagement,

• and continuous value delivery.

AI isn’t changing the destination. It’s accelerating our arrival.

So, in this blog, I’m going to walk you through that Wardley Map, explain the structural evolution of the industry, and show why 2026 is the tipping point.

This isn’t theory. It is the strategic blueprint guiding TheAX - and, I believe, the future of consulting.

The Structural Evolution of Consulting: A Wardley Map Story

Let’s start at the beginning and tell this story in five acts.

Act 1, Part 1: Entrance - The Expert

This is where all consultancies begin - and where many remain. Every consultancy begins with a single dynamic: an expert selling their personal capability.

You sell:

• your CV,

• your experience,

• your intuition,

• your problem-solving ability,

• your reputation.

Clients buy you (or your firm’s reputation) - not assets, not IP, not a platform.

It’s personal, not scalable.
It’s impactful, but fragile.
And it locks your value to your availability.

This is how almost every consultancy in the world begins. And this is where many never move beyond.

Act 1, Part 2: The step forward - Frameworks, Tools & Reusable Assets

In Part 2 of Act 1 we then see naturally the first attempt to scale the expert (or a firm). The first-time expertise becomes structured - but still too hard for many.

As a consultant grows busier, they do what we all do, they start building structure to be more efficient.

• frameworks

• methods

• diagnostic questions

• templates

• custom spreadsheets

• branded decks

• proposal libraries

• pitch collateral

This feels like progress. And it is - to a point.

These assets improve:

• consistency,

• efficiency,

• credibility,

• and delivery quality.

But they do not change the underlying dependency. Even with better decks and sharper frameworks:

• IP still lives inside the consultants,

• delivery still varies by person,

• and the firm still sells people, not products.

And developing high-quality assets is hard work:

• time-consuming,

• dependent on senior experts,

• difficult to maintain,

• and rarely shared consistently across the firm.

That’s why most consultancies get stuck here - indefinitely. The play for them does not move on.

At the end of Act 1 it looks like scale… but it really isn’t.

Act 2 - Productisation Emerges

In the 2010s, something important happened. Some consultancies began building:

• maturity models,

• diagnostics tools,

• benchmarking frameworks,

• structured assessments,

• problem-specific specialisms.

This was the first real shift toward productised consulting.

These models provided:

• objectivity,

• repeatability,

• a clearer narrative,

• and a foundation for more consistent outcomes.

Specialism also emerged. Firms began focusing on solving specific client problems, not “general consulting.” And built repeatable models and systems to achieve this.

But here’s the challenge: Productisation is incredibly hard without the right infrastructure.

Creating maturity models manually takes months.
Designing diagnostics takes expertise few firms have spare.
Building benchmarking tools requires data engineering.
Creating structured assets needs editorial discipline.
Running them all requires operational architecture.

This is why adoption remained limited. Few firms had the resources to pull it off, and maintain their focus and models, and build the systems to deliver it all.

Everyone else stayed trapped in Act 2 – maybe wanting to productise, but unable to do so. Maybe reassuring themselves that consultancy is all about the individual expert.

Then GenAI arrived.

Act 3 - GenAI Arrives (2023)

And exposes the limits of the old model…

When OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022 and the world adopted it at lightning speed, consulting hit a crossroad.

Two things happened simultaneously:

1. Consultants got faster.

Research, structuring content, drafting reports — all accelerated.

2. Clients got the same tools.

And that raised a brutal question:

If my consultant uses the same $20/month tool I do, what exactly am I paying them for?

GenAI supercharges personal productivity. But it does not transform:

• delivery,

• scalability,

• value,

• or differentiation.

And it certainly does not create:

• productised IP,

• data assets,

• structured insights,

• repeatable diagnostics,

• or an operating system for consulting.

So, while AI made individuals faster, it made traditional consulting models look weaker.

That’s where TheAX took a fundamentally different approach.

TheAX Unlocks Productised Consulting

(What We Deliver Today)

While the market has chased chatbot helpers, we built something different: A platform that uses GenAI to transform consulting at the value-chain level.

TheAX today enables two things no consultancy could do at scale before:

1. Build product components and tools - in hours, not months

TheAX accelerates the creation of:

• structured, repeatable assets,

• maturity models & diagnostics,

• benchmarking tools & data infrastructure,

• productised propositions and offers.

This used to take months of work now it takes hours. It democratises Productisation.
It gives every consultancy, regardless of size, the ability to offer:

• consistent,

• structured,

• data-powered,

• specialist consulting products.

This perfectly aligns with what clients want today.

2. Get instant efficiency in delivering those products

Once those products are created, TheAX automates and accelerates their delivery:

• diagnostics

• scoring

• benchmarking

• report generation

• insight creation

• roadmap recommendations

• follow-up workflows

The platform handles the heavy lifting. Consultants focus on interpretation, change, and leadership.

This gives firms:

• higher margins,

• faster delivery,

• more capacity,

• and far greater client impact.

But the platform model delivers a third capability - and this is what sets TheAX apart.

TheAX Creates the Platform Foundation

(What We Deliver Today, and Build On in 2026)

Because TheAX is a platform - not a point solution - it enables a much deeper transformation.

A Unified Data Layer

TheAX aggregates assessment and diagnostic data across all engagements.

This gives consultancies:

• benchmarking capability,

• proprietary data assets,

• cross-client patterns and insights,

• measurable outcomes,

• and defensible IP.

For the first time, firms can build IP that compounds.

A Consultancy Operating System

TheAX integrates:

• workflows,

• data,

• governance,

• collaboration,

• delivery logic,

• and AI.

It becomes the OS for the entire business, creating a seamless, intelligent, repeatable delivery engine. This is the platform stage. And it sets up what comes next.

Act 4 - 2026: Clients enter the Platform

(Q1 2026 Release: The Next Major Leap)

From Q1 2026, TheAX will extend platform capabilities to clients themselves.

We will enable:

• clients to access their assessment results,

• clients to use AI to ask questions about their data,

• clients to run their own self-serve assessments,

• clients to track project status,

• clients to see dashboards and trend views,

• clients to use consultancy IP directly through the platform.

This is transformational. Consulting becomes:

• transparent,

• collaborative,

• ongoing,

• data-driven,

• highly integrated.

And it leads logically to the final stage of evolution in our final act of this current play.

Act 5 - Subscription-Led Consulting

(The Ecosystem Era, 2026–2029)

Once a consultancy:

• has productised offerings,

• delivers via a platform,

• captures unified data,

• provides client portals,

• supports self-serve capability,

• and powers continuous insights…

…a new model becomes inevitable:

Subscription-led consulting.

This is where:

• human expertise,

• platform intelligence,

• automation,

• benchmarking,

• diagnostics,

• and improvement workflows

combine to deliver continuous value - not episodic projects.

It is logical.
Commercially powerful.
Client-driven.
And strategically unstoppable.

Clients will pull it because:

• they want ongoing insight and outcomes.

• it is more predictable and measurable.

• it embeds capability inside their operations.

Consultancies will pull it because:

• recurring revenue increases stability.

• data & systems increase valuation.

• scalable delivery increases margin.

The market will pull it because:

• AI raises expectations beyond human speed.

• “projects” become too slow and too manual.

• continuous value becomes the default expectation.

We began in Act 1 as experts selling our CVs. In 2026, we must become systems delivering continuous outcomes as the culmination of this play. This is the inevitable direction of consulting.

The inflection point will be unmistakable in 2026 and If consultancies do not evolve, clients will outgrow them.

The Conclusion: The Future of Consulting Is a System, Not a Service

Put simply:

Consulting has evolved from:
personal expertise →
frameworks →
assets →
maturity models →
productised offerings →
platform delivery →
client-integrated systems →
subscription-led value.

Each step has been driven by a mixture of client demand, market pressure, and technological capability. AI didn’t invent this journey - but it removes every barrier that made it hard.

2026 is the line in the sand. Consultancies that embrace Productisation, Platformisation, and continuous value
will scale, differentiate, and grow.

Consultancies that cling to expertise + frameworks + decks will find themselves outpaced by clients - or replaced by competitors who made the leap.

TheAX exists to make that leap possible - and to make it achievable in 2026.

Join us on this journey to turn expertise into scalable products that deliver faster, smarter, measurable impact. Let’s build the future of consultancy together.

The AX30 Project - Your Fastest Path to AI Transformation

If your consultancy is ready to move beyond experimentation and start delivering measurable AI transformation — internally and to clients — the AX30 Project offers a proven, low-friction, high-impact pathway.

Let’s build the future of consulting, together. Click here to learn how to Get Started with the AX30.