The pyramid worked because it taught you how to think. Once machines do the thinking, that whole cultural engine for building expertise starts to disappear.The recent Harvard Business Review article on AI dismantling consulting’s pyramid model points to a much deeper problem. What is unraveling is not just structure but the culture that gave expertise its legitimacy. The rituals and hierarchies that once created authority now feel performative in a world of transparency and automation.This is not a technical disruption but a cultural reckoning. Consulting and design must rebuild around new frameworks of trust, foresight, and human interpretation. The next era of expertise will belong to those who can read cultural change as clearly as they once read a balance sheet.