How consultancies can harness AI without harming their people
Layoffs make for dramatic headlines, but they often hide the quieter failures that led to them. Matt Cockett, CEO of Dayshape, explains that firms ‘replacing’ staff with AI may highlight a gap between what leaders think their workers do, and reality.
The latest cuts at enterprise firms like Amazon and Accenture have been framed as another sign that AI is reshaping work at breakneck speed. The truth is far more ordinary. Redundancies usually begin long before the announcement, in the months and years when organisations lose sight of how their own operations function. When leaders cannot see who is doing the work, how capacity matches demand, or where inefficiencies stack up, technology becomes a sticking plaster rather than a strategic tool. AI amplifies this gap. It does not close it.
Across many industries that tension is becoming clear. In professional services, the pressure to adopt AI has grown sharply. Firms are chasing efficiency, predictability and a sense of control. Yet operational visibility remains patchy. Our research shows that up to 44% of UK firms missed their revenue targets last year. Of those, 30% linked the shortfall to inaccurate forecasting, while 27% cited capacity constraints. That is a significant proportion of missed growth tied not to volatile markets but to everyday blind spots within firms. These are issues that could have been fixed with better insight and alignment.
This lack of visibility is showing up in confidence too. Only one in four leaders feels assured in their firm’s operational discipline and long term planning. Leaders are navigating major shifts in client expectations, talent models and new forms of automation, yet many do so without a clear view of what resources they already have. When firms cannot see team level capacity or upcoming bottlenecks, decisions become reactive. The cycle then repeats each year, creating pressure that eventually spills into the workforce.
It is tempting to pin these challenges on external forces. Market uncertainty plays a role, but the numbers show that most disruption is coming from within. 86% of leaders believe their people are used to their full potential, yet nearly a third say they cannot see team level capacity clearly. That disconnect points towards what many are calling a utilisation mirage. On paper it looks as though teams are running at full strength. In practice, hidden inefficiencies, overstretch and burnout are far more common. Large firms report these pressures most acutely, which is unsurprising given the complexity of their operations.
The link between poor visibility and job cuts is becoming harder to ignore. Accenture offered a stark example when it cut 11000 roles earlier this year and pointed to difficulties retraining staff into AI related roles. The narrative centred on rapid technological change, but the underlying issue was a gap in workforce planning. Without a clear map of skills, strengths and potential pathways, firms struggle to redeploy people into emerging roles. Those roles did not vanish. The ability to transition into them did. That distinction matters because it reveals how avoidable many layoffs could be with better insight.
If a firm does not understand how work gets delivered today, AI will not transform it tomorrow. Technology cannot compensate for a lack of operational clarity. When organisations automate processes they do not fully understand, they risk making poor decisions faster. That is when trust breaks down. Teams see the tools as threats rather than support, and leaders lose the ability to predict how changes will ripple through the business.
Yet the appetite for technology keeps rising. In our survey we found 32% of firms plan to invest in AI for scheduling and capacity modelling. On paper it is promising, but the path to adoption is rarely smooth. Many firms are held back by weak data quality and disconnected systems. Leaders want future looking models, but the information feeding those models is often out of date or incomplete. When that happens, AI becomes another layer of complexity. Instead of bringing clarity, it adds noise. Technology alone cannot solve problems that originate in visibility.
The firms that will avoid future rounds of reactive layoffs are those willing to invest in understanding their own operations. Stronger capacity modelling gives leaders a clearer picture of upcoming demand. Skills visibility shows how existing talent can be redeployed and where the real gaps are emerging. Integrated scenario planning helps firms understand how new tools or market changes will land, long before disruption arrives. These steps sound technical, but they are ultimately human. They reveal how people work, where they struggle and where they thrive.
There is also a cultural benefit. When people feel seen and understood, they are far more open to innovation. AI then becomes a tool that supports their work instead of threatening it. This balance is crucial for knowledge based sectors where human expertise still defines value. Technology can enhance that value, but only if the foundations are stable.
The lesson from many professional services firms making redundancies is clear. Redundancies are often a sign of poor visibility. When organisations do not understand their own operations, they turn to job cuts as a quick fix. It gives an impression of action, even when it does little to solve the underlying problem.
AI is set to transform work, but the real opportunity lies in how organisations prepare for it. Firms that build strong operational insight will use AI to empower their people. Those that do not will continue to face cycles of missed revenue, reactive cuts and declining morale.
Layoffs are not inevitable. They are often the cost of not knowing your own business well enough to evolve. The firms that thrive in the years ahead will be the ones willing to look inward before rushing outward.
